THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
STRONG LEADERSHIP
A CLEAR ECONOMIC PLAN
A BRIGHTER, MORE SECURE FUTURE
i= Conservatives
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Contents
FOREWORD by David Cameron — Leader of the Conservative Party iciscinicsnnanaienainnsasiaataniivnisanisiisnonisianssnsadssnian
1. AN ECONOMIC PLAN TO HELP YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
A strong economy to help you and your family 0.0.0.0
Better roads, trains and modern communications... een ee
2. JOBS FOR ALL
Jobs for all
3. CUTTING YOUR TAXES, MAKING WELFARE FAIRER AND CONTROLLING IMMIGRATION
Cutting your taxes and building a fairer welfare system
Controlled immigration that benefits Britain
4. THE BEST SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
Giving your child the best start in life. ese
Protecting and improving our National Health Service ee
Enabling you to enjoy our heritage, creativity and sports Se Se ae eee eee ee ne ne eee
Helping you build the Big Society
Making government work better for you
5. SECURING YOUR HOME AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
Helping you to buy a home of your own
Protecting and enhancing our natural environment
Guaranteeing you clean, affordable and secure energy supplies
Fighting crime and standing up for victims
Preventing terrorism, countering extremism
6. DIGNITY IN YOUR RETIREMENT
Dignity in your retirement
7. KEEPING OUR COUNTRY SECURE
Stronger together: a Union for the 21st century eee
Real change in our relationship with the European Unton o.oo cs sss tnntnntnnnnninninninuninniiunsinsniniensuensee
A Britain standing tall in the world
A stronger voice for our nation on the world stage
Keeping Britain safe
‘Tackling global challenges to make you safer and more prosperous
CONCLUSION
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
We have a plan for every stage of your life:
FOR THE BEST START IN LIFE
we will continue to increase spending on the NHS, provide 7-day a week access to your GP
and deliver a truly 7-day NHS ~ so you know you will always have access to a free and high quality
health service when you need it most.
FOR YOUR SCHOOL YEARS
we will maintain the amount of money that follows each child into school, ensure there is a good
primary school place available for every child and lift the cap on university places — so you have the
skills you need to succeed.
TO SECURE YOUR FIRST JOB
we will create 3 million new apprenticeships; take everyone earning less than £12,500 out of Income
Tax altogether and pass a law to ensure we have a ‘Tax-Free Minimum Wage in this country; and
continue to create a fairer welfare system where benefits are capped to the level that makes work pay
— so you are rewarded for working hard and doing the right thing.
AS YOU RAISE YOUR FAMILY
we will extend the Right to Buy to Housing Association tenants, build 200,000 new Starter Homes
— 20 per cent below the market price, for first-time buyers under 40 — and provide 30 hours of free
childcare to working parents of three and four year-olds — so you are able to work while having the
security of your own home in which to raise your family.
WHILE YOU GROW OLDER
we will not raise VAT, National Insurance contributions or Income Tax but we will raise the 40p
Income Tax threshold to £50,000 and take the family home out of tax by increasing the effective
Inheritance ‘Tax threshold for married couples and civil partners to £1 million — so you can keep
more of your income and pass it on to future generations.
AND WHEN YOU RETIRE
we will continue to increase the Basic State Pension by at least 2.5 per cent through the triple lock,
give you the freedom to use your pension savings as you want and pass them on tax-free and we
will cap the amount you can be charged for your residential care — so you can have the dignity and
security you deserve in your old age.
The next Conservative Government will secure a better
future for you, your family and Britain.
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Foreword
Over the last five years, we have put our country back on the right track. Five years ago, Britain was on the brink. As the
outgoing Labour ‘Treasury Minister put it with brutal candour, ‘there is no money’. Since then, we have turned things around.
Britain is now one of the fastest growing major economies in the world. We are getting our national finances back under
control. We have halved our deficit as a share of our economy. More people are in work than ever before. Britain is back on
its feet, strong and growing stronger every day.
This has not happened by accident. It is the result of difficult decisions and of patiently working through our long-term
economic plan. Above all, it is the product of a supreme national effort, in which everyone has made sacrifices and everyone
has played their part.
It is a profound Conservative belief that our country is made great not through the action of government alone, but
through the flair, the ingenuity and hard work of the British people — and so it has proved the last five years.
We can be proud of what we have achieved so far together, and especially proud that as we have taken hard decisions on
public spending, we have protected the National Health Service, with 9,500 more doctors and 6,900 more nurses, and
ensured generous rises in the State Pension.
Our friends and competitors overseas look at Britain, and they see a country that is putting its own house in order, a country
on the rise. ‘They see a country that believes in itself, But our national recovery remains a work in progress. It is fragile, and
with the wrong decisions, it could easily be reversed.
So the central questions at this election are these: how do we maintain our economic recovery, upon which our ambitions for
our country depend? And how do we make sure that the recovery benefits every one of our citizens, at every stage of their lives?
This Manifesto sets out our plan to do just that. It is a plan for a better future — for you, for your family. It is a plan for
every stage of your life. For your new-born baby, there will be the world's best medical care. For your child, there will be a
place at an excellent school. As you look for your first job, we are building a healthy economy that provides a good career
for you with a decent income. As you look for that first home, we will make sure the Government is there to help. As you
raise your family, we will help you with childcare. And as you grow older, we will ensure that you have dignity in retirement.
Throughout, we will make sure that if you or your family fall ill, you will always be able to depend on our cherished
National Health Service to give you the care you need.
And in an increasingly dangerous and uncertain world, we will fulfil the most basic duty of government — to defend our
country and keep it safe.
But all of these things depend on a strong and growing economy. So as you consider how to vote, I hope you will ask this:
which party 1s best placed to keep our economy strong? The team which has delivered the growing economy we have today,
which created more jobs since 2010 than the rest of the European Union put together; or the party which left behind a
ruined economy just five short years ago?
Now is a time to build on the progress we have made, not to put it all at risk. ‘This Manifesto is our plan of action — our plan
to take our amazing country forward. Above all, it is a plan for you.
I hope you will give it your support, so that together, we can see through the task we have begun.
Qt Om
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
A strong economy to help you and your family
Our commitment to you:
Your job, your home, the mortgage you pay, the school your children go to, your local hospital,
your pension - all these things depend ona strong economy. So we will carry on working
through our long-term economic plan. We will:
m keep our economy secure by running a surplus so that we start paying down our debts
= increase the tax-free Personal Allowance to £12,500 and the 40p Income Tax threshold to
£50,000
m= commit to no increases in VAT, National Insurance contributions or Income Tax
m= crack down on tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance and ensure those who can
afford to pay the most do
m rebalance our economy, build a Northern Powerhouse and back elected metro mayors
m pursue our ambition to become the most prosperous major economy in the world by the 2030s.
Our long-term economic plan is turning around Britain’s
economy. Five years ago, Britain was reeling from the
chaos of Labour’s Great Recession; in 2014 we were the
fastest growing of all the major advanced economies —
last year, we grew 75 per cent faster than Germany, three
times faster than the Eurozone and seven times faster
than France. Five years ago, the budget deficit was more
than 10 per cent of GDP, the highest in our peacetime
history, and the national debt was rising out of control;
today, the deficit is half that level and debt as a share of
national income will start falling this financial year.
The fastest growing of all the
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in 2014
Industries are coming back to life. Companies are striding
into new markets. Manufacturers are returning to our
shores. More tech companies are starting up here than
anywhere else in Europe. We have overtaken France as the
third largest car producer in Europe and there are 760,000
more businesses than in 2010 providing jobs and creating
wealth across the country.
The Great Recession has given way to a Great Revival,
which is creating on average 1,000 new jobs every day:
more than the rest of the European Union combined.
This is no accident. It is the product of hard work by
people in every part of the country and it is thanks to
the success of our long-term economic plan. By halving
the deficit, we have helped to restore confidence to the
economy. By maintaining fiscal discipline, we have helped
keep mortgage rates lower than they otherwise would be.
And by establishing the independent Office for Budget
Responsibility (OBR), we have ended — permanently — the
ability of politicians to cook the books for political gain
at the nation’s expense. With inflation at a record low, the
latest OBR forecasts show that living standards will be
higher in 2015 than in 2010, and are set to grow strongly
every year for the rest of the decade, with the average
family £900 better off. It is only by securing the recovery,
dealing with our debts and creating jobs that we can
continue to raise living standards. ‘That means sticking to
our long-term economic plan; Britain is on the right path.
But the job is not finished. There are clouds on the
international horizon. Huge challenges remain at home.
We have cut the record deficit we inherited to five per
cent of GDP, but that is still too high. Our trade with
emerging economies is up, with exports to China more
than doubled since 2009, but overall we are still too
AN ECONOMIC PLAN TO HELP YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
dependent on slow-growing European markets. Business
investment is rising, but we still underinvest compared
to other countries. Productivity remains too low. And
while prosperity is now spreading around the country,
our economic growth remains uneven, too reliant on
financial services.
1,000 jobs created for every day
of the Parliament since 2010
We will finish the job we started in a balanced way. Those
with the broadest shoulders have contributed the most
to deficit reduction — which is why inequality has fallen,
and child and pensioner poverty are down — and they will
continue to do so. We will increase NHS spending every
year. We will control spending, eliminate the deficit, and
start to run a surplus. We will go from stuck in the red, to
back in the black. By building on the foundations we have
put in place, we will have a truly national recovery and be
able to pursue our ambition for Britain to become the most
prosperous major economy in the world by the 2030s.
If we do not stick to our long-term economic plan, we
will slip back again, reversing the progress we have made
in the last five years. More borrowing — and the extra
debt interest that it brings — means there is less money
to spend on schools and hospitals. More spending
means higher taxes for hardworking people, and interest
rates that are higher than they otherwise would be —
punishing homeowners, hurting businesses, costing jobs.
A strong economy allows us
to invest in and protect our
public services like the NHS
and schools
And failing to control our debt would be more than an
economic failing; it would be a moral failing — leaving
our children and grandchildren with debts that they
could never hope to repay.
So you face a clear choice. Economic competence, with
David Cameron as Prime Minister, following through
on our long-term economic plan. Or economic chaos
under Labour, with higher taxes, more debt and no plan
to fix our public finances, create jobs or build a more
secure economy.
Our plan of action:
We will finish the job by eliminating the deficit
to keep our economy secure and keep your
taxes and mortgage payments down
Our long-term economic plan reflects our values: we as a
nation should not be piling up and passing on unaffordable
levels of debt to the next generation. We will eliminate the
deficit in a sensible and balanced way that will enable us to
continue to increase spending on the NHS and cut Income
‘Tax for 30 million working people.
Our deficit reduction plan has two phases. The first
will see us continue to reduce government spending by
one per cent each year in real terms for the first two full
financial years of the next Parliament, the same rate as
over the last five years. ‘That means saving £1 a year
in every £100 that government spends. We don’t think
there’s a business that couldn’t do that — and we don’t
think government, when it is spending your money,
should be any different.
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share of our economy
That will require a further £30 billion in fiscal
consolidation over the next two years, on top of the
£120 billion that we have already identified and
delivered over this Parliament. We will find £13 billion
from departmental savings, the same rate of reduction
as in this Parliament. We will find £12 billion from
welfare savings, on top of the £21 billion of savings
delivered in this Parliament. And we will raise at least
£5 billion from continuing to tackle tax evasion, and
ageressive tax avoidance and tax planning, building
on the £7 billion of annual savings we have delivered
in this Parliament. This £30 billion of further
consolidation is necessary to ensure that debt keeps
falling as a share of GDP and to deliver a balanced
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
structural current budget in 2017-18, meeting the new
fiscal mandate that Parliament voted on earlier this year.
Our commitment goes further than this. A balanced
current budget is not enough to deliver a reliable
reduction in our level of national debt, which remains
far too high in a world of continuing economic
challenges. International evidence and Treasury analysis
shows that the only way to keep our economy secure
for the future is to eliminate the deficit entirely and start
running a surplus. Anything less would be to ignore the
lessons of the past.
That is why, in the second phase of our deficit reduction
plan starting in 2018-19, we are set to move into surplus,
with the Government taking in more than it is spending for
the first time in 18 years. ‘That means we can start properly
paying down our debts and reducing the scale of annual
interest payments — reducing the UK’s vulnerability to
future shocks by fixing the roof while the sun is shining.
We will achieve this by continuing to control government
spending in 2018-19, no longer cutting it in real terms, but
instead growing it in line with inflation.
To eliminate the deficit we
must continue to cut out
wasteful spending and make
government more efficient,
effective and accountable
From 2019-20, after a surplus has been achieved,
spending will grow in line with GDP. A new fundamental
principle of fiscal policy, monitored by the independent
OBR, will ensure that in normal economic times, when
the economy is growing, the government will always run
a surplus in order to reduce our national debt and keep
our economy secure, with a state neither smaller than we
need nor bigger than we can afford. ‘Total government
spending as a share of our national income at the end of
the next Parliament is forecast to be very slightly higher
than in the year 2000, the year before Labour lost all
control of spending and the national debt started its
longest rise for hundreds of years.
Our approach is focused on reducing wasteful spending,
making savings in welfare, and continuing to crack down
on tax evasion and aggressive avoidance. ‘This means that
we can commit to no increases in VAT; Income ‘Tax or
National Insurance. ‘Tax rises on working people would
harm our economy, reduce living standards and cost
jobs. Instead, as we reduce the deficit, we will cut Income
‘Tax, as we have done over the last five years: during the
next Parliament, we will increase the tax-free Personal
Allowance to £12,500 and the higher rate threshold to
£50,000, so you keep more of your hard-earned money.
The richest are paying a greater
Share of income tax than in any
of Labour's 13 years
We will continue to build a stronger, safer and
more secure banking system that serves its
customers and provides businesses with the
finance they need to grow and create jobs
We will make sure our financial services industry is the
best regulated in the world with our new system of
supervision led by the independent Bank of England.
Our new Financial Policy Committee will monitor and
control the growth of indebtedness and imbalances across
the whole economy ~ a vital task that was totally ignored
in the run up to the financial crisis. Our tough new
Financial Conduct Authority will protect consumers and
ensure that financial markets work for the benefit of the
whole economy. ‘To protect hardworking taxpayers from
future banking crashes, we will finish the process of ring-
fencing banks’ high street branches from their investment
arms by 2019 at the latest. In order to ensure that new
pay structures for bankers rebuild trust and reduce short-
termism, we will ensure that Britain continues to have the
toughest regime of bonus deferral and clawback of any
financial centre. We will continue to sell the Government’s
stakes in the bailed-out banks and building societies
in order to deliver value for money for taxpayers and
support the economy. Hardworking taxpayers supported
the banks during the financial crisis and so the banks
should in turn support them during the recovery — that
is why we will keep the bank levy in place and restrict
established banks’ ability to pay less tax by offsetting their
profits against past losses.
AN ECONOMIC PLAN TO HELP YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
We will make the banks work for you
Our plan is to ensure banks help secure our recovery
and back businesses to create jobs and growth in our
economy. We capped payday lenders, made it easier
for you to switch your bank account and will continue
to support the credit union movement in making
financial services more accessible. We will continue the
successful Funding for Lending scheme into 2016. We
will help new and existing challenger banks to inject
fresh competition into the market for personal current
accounts, mortgages and business loans, including
through the British Business Bank, while backing the
financial technology revolution. We will improve our
support for investment into start-ups and roll-out our
innovative Help to Grow scheme, which will plug a £1
billion finance gap for firms that are looking to expand,
invest and take on new employees.
We will continue to lead the world on tax and
transparency
‘Tackling tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance and
tax planning is an important part of our long-term
economic plan. We will increase the annual tax charges
paid by those with non-domiciled status, ensuring that
they make a fair contribution to reducing the deficit,
and continue to tackle abuses of this status. We will
lead international efforts to ensure global companies
pay their fair share in tax, as David Cameron did at
the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland in 2013, which
secured significant international progress on fairer
tax rules and full transparency over who really owns
companies. We will push for all countries to sign up
to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative;
review the implementation of the new international
country-by-country tax reporting rules and consider the
case for making this information publicly available on a
multilateral basis. We will ensure developing countries
have full access to global automatic tax information
exchange systems and continue to build the capacity
of tax authorities in developing countries. We are also
making it a crime if companies fail to put in place
measures to stop economic crime, such as tax evasion, in
We are fixing the economy
so that everyone feels the
benefit
their organisations and making sure that the penalties are
large enough to punish and deter.
We will rebalance our economy and build a
Northern Powerhouse
We are committed to a truly national recovery, benefiting all
parts of our country. We have devolved powers to Scotland
and Wales, and set out long-term economic plans to raise
the growth rate of all parts of England, bringing areas which
have grown more slowly up to at least the national average.
Over the last year, the North grew faster than the South. By
connecting up the North with modern transport links, we
will enable its great cities and towns to pool their strengths.
We will invest a record £13 billion in transport for the North.
We will electrify the main rail routes, build the Northern
Hub, and provide new trains for the North. We will upgrade
the Al, M62, M1 and A555 link road. And that is on top of
our £50 billion commitment to build High Speed 2 — the
new North-South railway limking up London with the West
Midlands, Leeds and Manchester — and develop High Speed
3 to jom up the North. We will back scientific and technical
strengths by creating new institutions such as Health North;
the Royce Institute for Advanced Materials in Manchester,
Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield; the National Centre for
Ageing Science and Innovation in Newcastle; the Cognitive
Computing centre at Daresbury; and by making investments
in energy research in Blackpool, Cumbria and Thornton.
We will back new jobs in the South West
To help attract growth and new businesses we will
improve connections to the South West with major
investment in the M5, A358, A30 and A303, and
the electrification of the Great Western Main Line —
bringing new fast trains on the route. We will invest to
boost tourism in the South West and ensure the world-
class defence assets and cyber-security industries of the
South West benefit the local economy.
Britain's exports are growing
fastest in the North East and
our employment fastest in the
North West
AN ECONOMIC PLAN TO HELP YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
We will make the Midlands an engine
of growth
We will back business by investing a record £5.2 billion
in better transport, upgrading the M1 and M6, and
electrifying the Midland Main Line from St Pancras
to Sheffield — putting the Midlands at the centre of
a modern, inter-connected transport network for the
UK. We will back the Midlands’ strength in advanced
manufacturing, engineering and science with major
projects such as the Energy Research Accelerator and
support for innovation in the motor industry.
We will properly connect the East of England
and back innovation
We will improve rail connections to East Anglia,
delivering ‘Norwich in 90 minutes’ and ‘Ipswich in 60
minutes’ and upgrade key roads like the All and A47.
We will support the creation of new jobs by backing the
East’s great strengths — agri-tech, high-tech businesses
around Cambridge, and energy businesses at Great
Yarmouth and Lowestoft.
We support policies that grow
the economy as a whole,
generating new jobs and
higher wages for everybody
We will devolve powers and budgets to boost
local growth in England
We will devolve far-reaching powers over economic
development, transport and social care to large cities which
choose to have elected mayors. We will legislate to deliver
the historic deal for Greater Manchester, which will devolve
powers and budgets and lead to the creation of a directly
elected Mayor for Greater Manchester. In Cambridgeshire,
Greater Manchester and Cheshire East, we will pilot
allowing local councils to retain 100 per cent of growth
in business rates, so they reap the benefit of decisions that
boost growth locally. We will devolve further powers over
skills spending and planning to the Mayor of London.
And we will deliver more bespoke Growth Deals with
local councils, where locally supported, and back Local
Enterprise Partnerships to promote jobs and growth.
AN ECONOMIC PLAN TO HELP YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Better roads, trains and modern communications
Our commitment to you:
You depend on infrastructure at every stage of your life: to go to school, to go to work, to enable
businesses to grow and create jobs for your children and grandchildren. We have a plan of
action that will improve our roads, railways, airports and internet connections. We will:
m= invest in infrastructure to attract businesses and good jobs across the whole of the UK
mw moke your life easier, with more and faster trains, more roads and cycle routes
mw keep commuter rail fares frozen in real terms for the whole of the next Parliament
m /o/l/ out universal broadband and better mobile phone connections, to ensure everyone is
part of the digital economy.
Under Labour, road and rail were starved of resources,
while too many people were stuck on the wrong side of the
digital divide. ‘This meant packed trains, potholes, patchy
broadband coverage — businesses held back and cities left
behind. ‘Turning these problems around takes time.
Improving our trains, roads
and broadband helps local
businesses grow and create
more jobs and opportunities
But because we have made savings elsewhere, we
have been able to make significant investments in
infrastructure. We will commit, alongside running a
surplus, to increase our capital spending — investment in
infrastructure — at least in line with our national income.
We have set out a plan to invest over £100 billion in our
infrastructure over the next Parliament.
This will fund the biggest investment in rail since
Victorian times, and the most extensive improvements
to our roads since the 1970s. And it will give us the
We are investing over £2 billion
electrifying our railways
most comprehensive and cheapest superfast broadband
coverage of any major European country.
Our plan of action:
We will spend more on infrastructure, to
improve your quality of life
Overall public investment will be higher on average over
this decade, as a percentage of GDP, than under the
whole period of the last Labour Government. We will
deliver on our National Infrastructure Plan and respond
to the Airports Commission’s final report.
We will transform our railway network
We will invest £38 billion in our railway network in the five
years to 2019. Electrification of the railways is a key part of
our investment programme, with work already underway
across the North, the Midlands, and South Wales; there
are plans to go further in the rest of the country, including
East Anglia and the South West. In addition to rolling out
our national high-speed rail network, with High Speed 2
and High Speed 3, we will complete the construction of the
new east-west Crossrail across Greater London, and push
forward with plans for Crossrail 2, a new rail route running
through London and connecting Surrey and Hertfordshire.
We will support a fairer deal for taxpayers and commuters:
we will keep commuter rail fares frozen in real terms for the
whole of the next Parliament — regulated fares will only be
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
able to rise by Retail Price Inflation, and train operating
companies will not have any flexibility to raise ticket prices
above this. We will also introduce smart ticketing and part-
time season tickets and require train companies to improve
compensation arrangements for passengers when trains
are more than a few minutes late. We are investing millions
of pounds in fitting out trains with new wi-fi equipment
and improving mobile phone signals, which will benefit
passengers on trains across England and Wales.
We will support motorists and invest in our
roads, to save you time and money
We abolished Labour’s fuel duty escalator, and instead
have frozen fuel duty, delivering the longest duty freeze
in 20 years. We will invest £15 billion in roads. This will
include over £6 billion in the northern road network,
with the dualling and widening of the Al north of
Newcastle and the first new trans-Pennine road capacity
in over 40 years. We will take action to tackle some of
the most notorious and longstanding problems on our
road network, including improvements to the A303,
A47 and A27. We will add 1,300 extra lane miles to our
roads, improve over 60 problem junctions, and continue
to provide enough funding to fix around 18 million
potholes nationwide between 2015 and 2021.
We will make motoring greener and promote
cycling, to protect your environment
Our aim is for almost every car and van to be a zero
emission vehicle by 2050 — and we will invest £500
million over the next five years to achieve it. We want
to double the number of journeys made by bicycle and
will invest over £200 million to make cycling safer, so we
reduce the number of cyclists and other road users killed
or injured on our roads every year.
We are investing £790 million
extending superfast broadband
to rural areas - with 2 million
UK premises already connected
and 40,000 being upgraded
every week
We will deliver faster internet, to help you
work and communicate more easily
We will secure the delivery of superfast broadband in
urban and rural areas to provide coverage to 95 per
cent of the UK by the end of 2017, and we will ensure
no one is left behind by subsidising the cost of installing
superfast capable satellite services in the very hardest to
reach areas. We will also release more spectrum from
public sector use to allow greater private sector access.
And we have set an ambition that ultrafast broadband
should be available to nearly all UK premises as soon as
practicable.
We will boost mobile coverage, so you can
stay connected
We will hold the mobile operators to their new legally
binding agreement to ensure that 90 per cent of the UK
landmass will have voice and SMS coverage by 2017.
We will continue to invest in mobile infrastructure to
deliver coverage for voice calls and text messages for
the final 0.3 — 0.4 per cent of UK premises that do not
currently have it. We will ensure that Britain seizes the
chance to be a world leader in the development of 5G,
playing a key role in defining industry standards.
AN ECONOMIC PLAN TO HELP YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
15
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Jobs for all
Our commitment to you:
Whatever stage of life you are at - whether you're looking for your first job out of school, or
coming to the end of your career - we will work to help you enjoy the satisfaction and rewards
of a decent job. We will:
m help businesses to create two million new jobs, so we achieve full enployment
give businesses the most competitive taxes of any major economy
back small firms with a major business rates review
m support three million new apprenticeships, so young people acquire the skills to succeed
If you want to live in the most vibrant and dynamic
country in the world, this election matters. Only the
Conservatives have the vision, the optimism, the ambition
and the discipline to transform Britain. That’s because we
know that a decent job is the best weapon against poverty
and the best way to provide security for families.
siaitsliamatcksmel ast] este m aalelas
jobs than the rest of the EU
put together since 2010
Thanks to the success of our long-term economic plan,
Britain 1s creating more jobs than the 27 other countries
of the European Union put together. That means more
people with the security of a regular pay packet. Over
the past five years, 1.9 million new jobs have been
created; 1,000 jobs for every single day that we have
been in government.
This represents a transformation in many people’s
lives; giving families more security; boosting the self-
esteem of young people taken on; and providing hope
for those who have been unemployed for years.
But we need to go further. We have set out the bold
aim of achieving full employment, with the highest
employment rate of any major economy. We want
Britain to be the best place in the world to start a
business and will create another two million jobs over
the next Parliament. We will abolish long-term youth
unemployment, and make sure that all young people
are either earning or learning. And we will make our
economy more inclusive, by removing barriers that
stop women and disabled people from participating in
our workforce.
A job is the best way to
provide security for
families
To achieve this, we will back British businesses: cutting
red tape, lowering taxes on jobs and enterprise, getting
young people into work, boosting apprenticeships
and investing in science and technology. With the
Conservatives, Britain will be the best place in Europe
to innovate, patent new ideas and set up and expand a
business. We aim to be number one in Europe and in the
top five worldwide in the World Bank’s Doing Business
rankings by 2020 and to lead Europe in attracting foreign
investment.
Backing business also means helping our farmers and
our rural communities. Neglected for 13 years under
Labour, we have started the process of championing and
connecting up the countryside. In the coming years, we
will go further, helping our farmers, supporting British food
around the world and opening up new export markets.
JOBS FOR ALL
17
2. JOBS FOR ALL
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
This is all at risk if the Labour Party forms the government.
Their policies to spend more, borrow more and tax more
would be catastrophic for Britain’s businesses — and for all
the families thrown back into the despair of joblessness and
financial uncertainty.
Our plan will help to
generate jobs and higher
wages for everybody
Our plan of action:
We will boost apprenticeships and help you
secure a good job
We have already delivered 2.2 million new apprenticeships
over the last five years. Over the next five years, we will
deliver three million more and ensure they deliver the skills
employers need. We aim to achieve full employment in
the UK, with the highest employment rate in the G7, and
we will help businesses create two million jobs over the
Parliament. We have abolished the jobs tax — employers'
National Insurance contributions (NICs) — for the under 21s
and next year we will do the same for young apprentices
under 25. We will continue to help smaller businesses take
on new workers through the Employment Allowance, which
frees businesses from the first £2,000 of employers’ NICs so
that a third of employers pay no jobs tax.
We will support business to
keep creating 1,000 jobs a day
over the next five years
We will aim to abolish long-term youth
unemployment
Our economic plan has helped deliver sharp falls in long-
term youth unemployment, taking the numbers of 16-18
year-olds not in education, employment or training to
historic lows. We will provide support to those 16 —17 year-
olds still not in education, employment or training and to
those who risk becoming so. Jobcentre Plus advisers will work
with schools and colleges to supplement careers advice and
provide routes into work experience and apprenticeships. But
it is not fair — on taxpayers, or on young people themselves
—that 18-21 year-olds with no work experience should slip
straight into a life on benefits without first contributing to
their community. So we will introduce tougher Day One
Work Requirements for young people claimimg out-of-work
benefits. We will replace the Jobseeker’s Alowance for 18-21
year-olds with a Youth Allowance that will be time-limited
to six months, after which young people will have to take an
apprenticeship, a traineeship or do daily community work
for their benefits. It is also not fair that taxpayers should
have to pay for 18-21 year-olds on Jobseeker’s Allowance to
claim Housing Benefit in order to leave home. So we will
ensure that they no longer have an automatic entitlement to
Housing Benefit.
We will reward entrepreneurship
‘To support jobs, we cut Corporation Tax from 28 to 20 per
cent over the course of the Parliament, reduced National
Insurance bills and capped the rise in business rates. We
have extended 100 per cent Small Business Rate Relief
and are providing extra support for high street shops by
increasing the business rates retail discount to £1,500.
In the next Parliament, we want to maintain the most
competitive business tax regime in the G20, and oppose
Labour’s plans to increase Corporation ‘Tax. We will
conduct a major review into business rates by the end of
2015 to ensure that from 2017 they properly reflect the
structure of our modern economy and provide clearer
billing, better information sharing and a more efficient
appeal system.
We will protect you from disruptive and
undemocratic strike action
Strikes should only ever be the result of a clear, positive
decision based on a ballot in which at least half the
workforce has voted. ‘This turnout threshold will be an
important and fair step to rebalance the interests of
employers, employees, the public and the rights of trade
unions. We will, in addition, tackle the disproportionate
impact of strikes in essential public services by introducing
a tougher threshold in health, education, fire and transport.
Industrial action in these essential services would require
the support of at least 40 per cent of all those entitled
to take part in strike ballots — as well as a majority of
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Britain has the most competitive
business tax regime in the G20 -
and we want to keep it that way
those who actually turn out to vote. We will also repeal
nonsensical restrictions banning employers from hiring
agency staff to provide essential cover during strikes; and
ensure strikes cannot be called on the basis of ballots
conducted years before. We will tackle intimidation of
non-striking workers; legislate to ensure trade unions
use a transparent opt-in process for union subscriptions;
tighten the rules around taxpayer-funded paid ‘facility
time’ for union representatives; and reform the role of the
Certification Officer.
We will cut red tape, boost start-ups and small
businesses
This Government was the first in post-war history to
reduce the burden of regulation. We will cut a further
£10 billion of red tape over the next Parliament
through our Red ‘Tape Challenge and our One-In-
Two-Out rule. ‘This will support our aim to make
Britain the best place in Europe, and one of the top five
worldwide, to do business by 2020. We will also treble
our successful Start Up Loans programme during the
next Parliament so that 75,000 entrepreneurs get the
chance to borrow money to set up their own business.
We will raise the target for SMEs’ share of central
government procurement to one-third, strengthen
the Prompt Payment Code and ensure that all major
government suppliers sign up. We have already helped
small businesses by increasing the Annual Investment
Allowance, reducing the burden of employment law
through our successful tribunal reforms and supporting
27,000 new business mentors. We will go further by
establishing a new Small Business Conciliation service
to mediate in disputes, especially over late payment.
The gender pay gap is down to a
gale) gem (eae) ale Maal) aomelaomanlelaa
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than ever before
The creation of the Office of ‘Tax Simplification (OTS)
in 2010 has resulted in many improvements to the UK
tax system. We will establish the OTS on a permanent
basis and expand its role and capacity. We will boost our
support for first-time exporters and back the GREAT
campaign, so we achieve our goal of having 100,000
more UK companies exporting in 2020 than in 2010
and reach our target of £1 trillion in exports. And we
will set a new, significantly higher, permanent level for
the Annual Investment Allowance.
We will fight for equal opportunity
Last year alone, 140,000 disabled people found work. But
the jobless rate for this group remains too high and, as part
of our objective to achieve full employment, we will aim
to halve the disability employment gap: we will transform
policy, practice and public attitudes, so that hundreds of
thousands more disabled people who can and want to be
in work find employment. We now have more women-led
businesses than ever before, more women in work than
ever before and more women on FTSE 100 boards than
ever before. We want to see full, genuine gender equality.
The gender pay gap is the lowest on record, but we want
to reduce it further and will push business to do so: we
will require companies with more than 250 employees to
publish the difference between the average pay of their
male and female employees. Under Labour, women
Our aim is to make Britain
the best place to do business
in Europe
accounted for only one in eight FTSE 100 board members.
They represent a quarter of board members today and we
want to see this rise further in the next Parliament. We also
want to increase the proportion of public appomtments
going to women In the next Parliament, as well as the
number of female MPs.
We will back you at work
Now that the economy 1s growing strongly again, we have
seen the first real-terms increase in the National Minimum
Wage since Labour’s Great Recession began. We strongly
support the National Minimum Wage and want to see
further real-terms increases in the next Parliament. We
JOBS FOR ALL
19
2. JOBS FOR ALL
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
accept the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission
that the National Minimum Wage should rise to £6.70 this
autumn, on course for a Minimum Wage that will be over
£8 by the end of the decade. We also support the Living
Wage and will continue to encourage businesses and other
organisations to pay it whenever they can afford it. We will
also take further steps to eradicate abuses of workers, such
as non-payment of the Minimum Wage, exclusivity in zero-
hours contracts and exploitation of migrant workers.
We will continue to invest in science, back our
industrial strategies and make Britain the
technology centre of Europe
Great science is worthwhile in its own right and yields
enormous practical benefits too — curing diseases, driving
technological innovation, promoting business investment
and informing public policy for the better. We ring-
fenced the science budget by making difficult choices
to reduce spending in other areas. Now we will invest
new capital on a record scale — £6.9 billion in the UK’s
research infrastructure up to 2021 — which will mean new
equipment, new laboratories and new research institutes.
This long-term commitment includes £2.9 billion for a
Grand Challenges Fund, which will allow us to invest in
major research facilities of national significance, such as
the new Alan Turing Institute, and projects such as the
Polar Research Ship and Square Kilometre Array. We have
boosted research and development tax credits and we will
continue to support our network of University Enterprise
Zones, ensuring that Britain's world-beating universities are
able to make money from the technology they develop. We
will support our modern industrial strategies, such as our
successful Life Sciences strategy, to help people compete
and win in the intense global race for high value, high
knowledge jobs. We will work with the Automotive Council
in support of our resurgent car industry and direct further
resources towards the Eight Great Technologies — among
them robotics and nanotechnology — where Britain is set to
be a global leader. We have delivered a network of catapult
centres — R&D hubs in the technologies of the future —
and we will create more to ensure that we have a bold and
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comprehensive offer in place for Britain’s researchers and
innovators.
We will support the rural economy and
strengthen local communities
We have the land, the technology, and the entrepreneurial
flair to enable us to make the most of the economic
potential of our rural areas. We will provide rural Britain
with near universal superfast broadband by the end of
the next Parliament and secure the future of 3,000 rural
Post Offices. We know how important it is to preserve
vital community assets such as pubs, town halls and sports
facilities, so we will strengthen the Community Right to
Bid that we created. We will extend the length of time
communities have to purchase these assets, and require
owners to set a clear ‘reserve’ price for the community
to aim for when bidding, We will set up a Pub Loan
Fund to enable community groups to obtain small loans
to pay for feasibility work, lawyers’ fees, or materials for
refurbishment, where they have bid to run the pub as part
of our reforms to the Community Asset Register.
We will champion our farmers and food
producers
We will set out a long-term vision for the future of British
farming, working with industry to develop a 25 year plan
to grow more, buy more and sell more British food. We will
allow farmers to smooth their profits for tax purposes over
five years, up from the current two years, to counter income
volatility. We will treble the number of apprenticeships in
food, farming and agri-tech, as part of our plan to secure
three million more apprenticeships. We will support a
science-led approach on GM crops and pesticides and
implement our 25-year strategy to eradicate bovine TB.
We will berate farmers from red tape by coordinating all
visits through a single Farm Inspection ‘Taskforce, which
will involve farmers themselves and use data from existing
industry schemes, such as Red ‘Tractor. We will push for
further reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.
We will promote British food abroad by setting up a Great
British Food Unit to help trademark and promote local
foods around the world and back British food at home,
by guaranteeing that all central government departments
purchase food to British standards of production by the
end of the Parliament. We will also help consumers to
buy British by pushing for country of origin labelling in
Europe, particularly for dairy products, followmg on from
JOBS FOR ALL
Z1
2. JOBS FOR ALL
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
our success with beef; lamb, pork and poultry. And we will
champion our new Groceries Code Adjudicator, so farmers
receive a fair deal from the supermarkets.
We will support our fishing and coastal
communities
We will defend our hard-won Common Fisheries Policy
reforms, which include ending the scandalous practice of
discarding perfectly edible fish and reforming the quota
system so that all at-risk species, including cod, plaice,
haddock and seabass, will be fished sustainably by the end
of the next Parliament. We will continue to devolve the
management of North Sea fisheries to local communities,
and rebalance the UK’s inland water quotas to smaller,
specific locally-based fishing communities.
We will support countryside pursuits
We will protect hunting, shooting and fishing, for all the
benefits to individuals, the environment and the rural
economy that these activities bring. A Conservative
Government will give Parliament the opportunity to repeal
the Hunting Act on a free vote, with a government bill in
government time.
JOBS FOR ALL
23
2. JOBS FOR ALL
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Cutting your taxes and building
a fairer welfare system
Our commitment to you:
Our goal is a country that not only rewards those who work hard and do the right thing, but
gives everyone - no matter their background - the chance to fulfil their potential. Achieving this
means seeing through our major reforms of tax and welfare. We will:
m= cut income tax for 30 million people, taking everyone who earns less than £12,500 out of
Income Tax altogether
m pass a new law so that nobody working 30 hours on the Minimum Wage pays Income
Tax on what they earn
m back aspiration by raising the 40p tax threshold - so that no one earning less than £50,000
pays it
= cap overall welfare spending, lower the amount of benefits that any household can receive
to £23,000 and continue to roll out Universal Credit, to make work pay
m bring in tax-free childcare to support parents back into work, and give working parents
of 3 and 4-year-olds 30 hours of free childcare a week.
Under Labour, those who worked hard found more and
more of their earnings taken away in tax to support
a welfare system that allowed, and even encouraged,
people to choose benefits when they could be earning a
living. This sent out terrible signals: if you did the right
thing, you were penalised — and if you did the wrong
thing, you were rewarded, with the unfairness of it all
infuriating hardworking people.
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over 26 million people - and
taken over 3 million people out
of Income Tax altogether
Over the last five years, we have cut people’s taxes
wherever possible. We have raised the tax-free Personal
Allowance to £10,600 from £6,475: over 26 million
people are now keeping more of their hard-earned
money and 3 million of the lowest paid are paying no
Income ‘Tax at all. We believe that cutting people’s taxes
is the right thing to do — not only because it is your
money, but also because cutting the taxes of the lowest
paid and helping them stand on their own two feet is the
most effective poverty-tackling measure there is.
Real fairness means that where people really cannot
work, they must be supported — but where they are
able to work, they should. We have made long overdue
changes to our welfare system. We have capped benefits
so no household can take more in out-of-work benefits
than the average household earns by going out to work.
We have begun to introduce Universal Credit — a way
to simplify benefits into a new single payment — so that
work always pays. We are reassessing those on incapacity
benefits so that help goes to those who really need it.
The days of something for nothing are over — and all
this has helped to reduce by 900,000 the number of
people living in workless households.
In the next Parliament, we will continue to reward hard
work: raising the tax-free Personal Allowance so that
those working 30 hours on the Minimum Wage pay
CUTTING YOUR TAXES, MAKING WELFARE FAIRER AND CONTROLLING IMMIGRATION 25
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
The goal of welfare reform
should be to reward hard
work and protect the
vulnerable
no Income Tax at all and taking hardworking people
out of a 40p higher rate tax band originally meant to
capture only the wealthy. And we will see through our
welfare reforms, lowering the benefit cap and rolling out
Universal Credit, to make the system fairer and reward
hard work.
Our plan of action:
We will reward work
A Conservative Government will not increase the rates
of VAT; Income ‘Tax or National Insurance in the next
Parliament. Instead, we will ease the burden of taxation
by raising the tax-free Personal Alowance — the amount
you can earn before you start paying tax — to £12,500.
This will cut Income ‘Tax for 30 million people and take
everyone who earns less than £12,500 out of Income
Tax altogether. ‘That means by the end of the decade,
one million more people on the lowest wages will be
lifted out of Income ‘Tax, and people who work for 30
hours a week on the increased National Minimum Wage
will no longer pay any Income ‘Tax at all. We will pass
a new law so that the Personal Allowance automatically
rises in line with the National Minimum Wage. The
new Tax Free Minimum Wage law will be applied from
the first Budget after the General Election. ‘The change
will update the 1977 'Rooker-Wise' amendment which
forced governments to uprate tax thresholds in line with
inflation, meaning the Personal Allowance will now
increase more quickly.
We will cut Income Tax for 30
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work is always rewarded
We will back your ambition
The 40p tax rate was only supposed to be paid by the
best-off people in our country. But in the past couple of
decades, far too many have been dragged into it.
We have already announced an above-inflation increase
in the threshold next year. Now we will raise the 40p
tax threshold much further, so that no one earning less
than £50,000 pays the higher rate of Income ‘Tax. ‘The
800,000 people earning between £42,385 and £50,000
will no longer pay the 40p rate of tax.
We will support you as you raise your family
We will support you, whether you choose to go out to
work or stay at home to raise your children. We will
back the institution of marriage in our society, enabling
married couples to transfer £1,060 of their tax-free
income to their husband or wife, where the highest earner
is a basic rate taxpayer. This applies to civil partnerships
too, and the transferable amount will always rise at least
in line with the Personal Allowance. And we will help
families stay together and handle the stresses of modern
life by continuing to invest at least £7.5 million a year in
relationship support.
We will bring in tax-free childcare to help
parents return to work, and give working
parents of three and four year-olds 30 hours
of free childcare a week
We have already legislated to introduce tax-free
childcare in the next Parliament — worth up to £2,000
per child per year — to help parents who want to work.
We introduced 15 hours a week of free childcare for all
three and four-year olds and the most deprived two-
year-olds. And because working families with children
under school age face particularly high childcare costs,
in the next Parliament we will give families where all
parents are working an entitlement to 30 hours of free
childcare for their three and four year-olds.
We will cap the UK's overall welfare spending,
to save you money
We will keep a check on the growth of welfare spending,
enabling us to provide a system that 1s fair to those who
need it, and fair to those who pay for it too. Our overall
welfare cap will limit the amount that government
CUTTING YOUR TAXES, MAKING WELFARE FAIRER AND CONTROLLING IMMIGRATION 27
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
in children’s lives, by recognising the root causes of
A welfare SY. stem that IS f air ; poverty: entrenched worklessness, family breakdown,
to those who need It, and fai [problem debt, and drug and alcohol dependency.
to th ae who Pp ay f or It too: We will reduce the household benefit cap to
stopping benefit cheats and _make the system fairer
en di ng welf are ab UuSe We will lower the maximum amount that a single
household can claim in benefits each year from
can spend on certain social security benefits in the five £26,000 to £23,000, so we reward work. We will
years from 2015-16. We will freeze working age benefits continue to have exemptions from the cap for those
for two years from April 2016, with exemptions for receiving Disability Living Allowance or the Personal
disability and pensioner benefits — as at present — as Independence Payment.
well as maternity allowance, statutory maternity pay,
statutory paternity pay, statutory adoption pay and We will help you back into work if you have a
statutory sick pay. We will deliver Universal Credit, long-term yet treatable condition
in order to provide the right incentives for people to
work; target support at those who need it most; reduce We will make sure the hardest to help receive the support
fraud and error; and streamline administration of the they need for a fulfilling life. We will review how best
welfare system. We will work to eliminate child poverty to support those suffermg from long-term yet treatable
and introduce better measures to drive real change conditions, such as drug or alcohol addiction, or obesity,
back into work. People who might benefit from treatment
should get the medical help they need so they can return
We will lower the benefit cap ies . renee ‘ a meer is
review whether their benefits sho e reduced. We
from £2 6,000 to £23,000 to also provide significant new support for mental health,
reward work benefiting thousands of people claiming out-of-work
benefits or beg supported by Fit for Work.
28
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Controlled immigration that benefits Britain
Our commitment to you:
Our plan to control immigration will put you, your family and the British people first. We will
reduce the number of people coming to our country with tough new welfare conditions and
robust enforcement. We will:
m keep our ambition of delivering annual net migration in the tens of thousands, not the
hundreds of thousands
= control migration from the European Union, by reforming welfare rules
=m Clamp down on illegal immigration and abuse of the Minimum Wage
m= enhance our border security and strengthen the enforcement of immigration rules
m develop a fund to ease pressure on local areas and public services.
Conservatives believe in controlled immigration, not
mass immigration. Immigration brings real benefits to
Britain — to our economy, our culture and our national
life. We will always be a party that is open, outward-
looking and welcoming to people from all around
the world. We also know that immigration must be
controlled. When immigration is out of control, it puts
pressure on schools, hospitals and transport; and it can
cause social pressures if communities find it hard to
integrate.
We must work to control
immigration and put
Britain first
Between 1997 and 2009, under the last Labour
Government, we had the largest influx of people Britain
had ever seen. ‘Their open borders policy, combined
with their failure to reform welfare, meant that for
years over 90 percent of employment growth in this
country was accounted for by foreign nationals — even
though there were 1.4 million people who spent most
of the 2000s living on out-of-work benefits. For the past
five years, we have been working to turn around the
situation we inherited.
Since 2010, we have stripped more than 850 bogus
colleges of their rights to sponsor foreign students;
installed proper exit checks at our borders; cracked
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down on illegal working and sham marriages; made
it harder for people to live in the UK illegally, by
restricting their access to bank accounts, driving licences
and private housing; and reduced the number of
appeal routes to stop people clogging up our courts with
spurious attempts to remain in the country. All of this
has made a difference. Immigration from outside the
EU has come down since 2010.
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We have seen many more people from the EU coming
to Britain than originally anticipated, principally
because our economy has been growing so much more
rapidly and creating more jobs than other EU countries.
As a result, our action has not been enough to cut
annual net migration to the tens of thousands. That
ambition remains the right one. But it is clearly going to
take more time, more work and more difficult long-term
decisions to achieve. Continuing this vital work will be
our priority over the next five years.
We will negotiate new rules with the EU, so that people
CUTTING YOUR TAXES, MAKING WELFARE FAIRER AND CONTROLLING IMMIGRATION 29
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
will have to be earning here for a number of years
before they can claim benefits, including the tax credits
that top up low wages. Instead of something-for-
nothing, we will build a system based on the principle
of something-for-something, We will then put these
changes to the British people in a straight in-out
referendum on our membership of the European Union
by the end of 2017. At the same time, we will continue
to strengthen our borders, improve the enforcement of
our immigration laws and act to make sure people leave
at the end of their visas. Across the spectrum, from the
student route to the family and work routes, we will
build a system that truly puts you, your family and the
British people first.
Our plan of action:
We will regain control of EU migration by
reforming welfare rules
Changes to welfare to cut EU migration will be an
absolute requirement in the renegotiation. We have
already banned housing benefit for EU jobseekers, and
restricted other benefits, including Jobseeker's Allowance.
We will insist that EU migrants who want to claim tax
credits and child benefit must live here and contribute
to our country for a minimum of four years. ‘This will
reduce the financial incentive for lower-paid, lower-
skilled workers to come to Britain. We will introduce a
new residency requirement for social housing, so that EU
migrants cannot even be considered for a council house
unless they have been living in an area for at least four
years. If an EU migrant’s child is living abroad, then
they should receive no child benefit or child tax credit,
no matter how long they have worked in the UK and
no matter how much tax they have paid. ‘To reduce the
numbers of EU migrants coming to Britain, we will end
the ability of EU jobseekers to claim any job-seeking
benefits at all. And if jobseekers have not found a job
within six months, they will be required to leave.
Tougher tests for migrants
before they can claim benefits
We will tackle criminality and abuse of free
movement
We will negotiate with the EU to introduce stronger
powers to deport criminals and stop them coming back,
and tougher and longer re-entry bans for all those who
abuse free movement. We want to toughen requirements
for non-EU spouses to join EU citizens, including with
an income threshold and English language test. And
when new countries are admitted to the EU in future,
we will insist that free movement cannot apply to those
new members until their economies have converged
much more closely with existing Member States.
We will continue to cut immigration from
outside the EU
We have already capped the level of skilled economic
migration from outside the EU. We will maintain our
cap at 20,700 during the next Parliament. ‘This will
ensure that we only grant visas to those who have the
skills we really need in our economy. We will reform the
student visa system with new measures to tackle abuse
and reduce the numbers of students overstaying once
their visas expire. Our action will include clamping
down on the number of so-called ‘satellite campuses’
opened in London by universities located elsewhere
in the UK, and reviewing the highly trusted sponsor
system for student visas. And as the introduction of exit
checks will allow us to place more responsibility on visa
sponsors for migrants who overstay, we will introduce
targeted sanctions for those colleges or businesses that
fail to ensure that migrants comply with the terms of
their visa.
We will strengthen the enforcement of
immigration rules
We have introduced a ‘deport first, appeal later’ rule
for foreign national offenders. We will now remove
even more illegal immigrants by extending this rule to
all immigration appeals and judicial reviews, including
where a so-called right to family life is involved, apart
from asylum claims. We will also implement a new
removals strategy to take away opportunities for spurious
legal challenge and opportunities to abscond. We will
introduce satellite tracking for every foreign national
offender subject to an outstanding deportation order or
deportation proceedings. And we will implement the
30
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
requirement for all landlords to check the immigration
status of their tenants.
We will tackle people trafficking and exploitation
We have already re-introduced a proper system of exit
checks across the country, passed a Modern Slavery
Act that will protect people from exploitation, and
quadrupled the fines for unscrupulous employers who
undercut the Minimum Wage. Now we will introduce
tougher labour market regulation to tackle illegal
working and exploitation. To crack down further on
illegal working, we will harness data from multiple
agencies, including Exit Checks data, to identify illegal
immigrants and businesses that employ illegal workers.
And to incentivise tougher action on employers who do
not pay the minimum wage, we will allow inspection
teams to reinvest more of the money raised by fines
levied on employers.
We will ease pressure on public services and
your local community
We are taking unprecedented action to tackle health
tourism and will recover up to £500 million from
migrants who use the NHS by the middle of the next
Parliament. ‘To help communities experiencing high and
unexpected volumes of immigration, we will introduce
a new Controlling Migration Fund to ease pressures
on services and to pay for additional immigration
enforcement. ‘To prevent sectors becoming partially or
wholly reliant on foreign workers, we will require those
regularly utilising the Shortage Occupation List, under
which they can bring skilled foreign workers into the
UK, to provide long-term plans for training British
workers.
We will protect British values
and our way of life
We will promote integration and British values
Being able to speak English is a fundamental part of
integrating into our society. We have introduced tough
new language tests for migrants and ensured councils
reduce spending on translation services. Next, we
will legislate to ensure that every public sector worker
operating in a customer-facing role must speak fluent
English. And to encourage better integration into our
society, we will also require those coming to Britain on
a family visa with only basic English to become more
fluent over time, with new language tests for those
seeking a visa extension.
CUTTING YOUR TAXES, MAKING WELFARE FAIRER AND CONTROLLING IMMIGRATION 31
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Giving your child the best start in life
Our commitment to you:
Your child deserves the best start in life. A good education is not a luxury; it should be a right for
everyone. We will:
m ensure a good primary school place for your child, with zero tolerance for failure
m turn every failing and coasting secondary school into an academy and deliver free
schools for parents and communities that want them
m help teachers to make Britain the best country in the world for developing maths,
engineering, science and computing skills
= create 3 million new apprenticeships and make sure there is no cap on university places,
so we have aspiration for all.
We know what works in education: great teachers;
brilliant leadership; rigour in the curriculum; discipline
in the classroom; proper exams. We have been bold in
reforming the education system to deliver these things,
based upon simple, clear principles and values. We
believe that parents and teachers should be empowered
to run their schools independently. We believe that
teaching is a highly skilled profession, and that we need
to attract the best graduates into it. And we believe that
there is no substitute for a rigorous academic curriculum
to secure the best from every pupil.
We inherited a system where far too many children left
school without the qualifications and skills they needed.
One in three children was leaving primary school unable
to read, write and add up properly. ‘The number of pupils
studying the core academic subjects at GCSE had halved.
Our schools had fallen down the global league tables
for maths and science. And the poorest children were
attending the weakest schools.
Our far-reaching education reforms have changed this. We
have brought high standards back to teaching, discipline
back to schools, and challenging subjects back onto the
curriculum. ‘Today, there are a milion more pupils in
schools rated by Ofsted as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’. Over
a thousand schools that were ranked ‘inadequate’ have
become Academies, bringing in new leadership to promote
discipline, rigour and higher standards.
There are over 250 new free schools — set up and run by
local people — delivering better education for the children
who need it most. We have boosted the number of
apprenticeships to record levels — 2.2 million over the last
five years — and last September more people headed off to
university than at any time in history. ‘Too many children,
however, are still not receiving the excellent education that
they deserve. So we will continue our reforms, so that every
child has the best possible start in life.
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Our plan of action:
We will drive up standards in your child's school
We have made exams more rigorous and ended grade
inflation. ‘There is more to do. We will start by introducing
tough new standards for literacy and numeracy in primary
schools. We will expect every 11-year-old to know their
times tables off by heart and be able to perform long
division and complex multiplication. ‘They should be
able to read a book and write a short story with accurate
punctuation, spelling and grammar. If children do not
THE BEST SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
reach the required standards in their exams at the end
of primary school, they will resit them at the start of
secondary school, to make sure no pupil is left behind.
We will require secondary school pupils to take GCSEs
in English, maths, science, a language and history or
geography, with Ofsted unable to award its highest ratings
to schools that refuse to teach these core subjects.
We will ensure there is a good primary school
place for your child, with zero tolerance of failure
We have more than doubled Labour’s spending on new
school places. But we want to go even further, investing
at least £7 billion over the next Parliament to provide
good school places. And we will let our best headteachers
take control of failmg primary schools, by expanding the
National Leaders of Education programme.
Every school needs high
standards, proper funding
and accountability
We will turn every failing and coasting secondary
school into an academy, and deliver free schools
if parents in your area want them
Over 4,000 schools are already benefiting from academy
status, giving them more power over discipline and
budgets. And nearly 800 of the worst-performing
primary schools have been taken over by experienced
academy sponsors with a proven track record of success.
This is improving education for our children. So we
will continue to expand academies, free schools, studio
schools and University Technical Colleges. Over the
next Parliament, we will open at least 500 new free
schools, resulting in 270,000 new school places. And
we will introduce new powers to force coasting schools
to accept new leadership. Any school judged by Ofsted
to be requiring improvement will be taken over by
the best headteachers — backed by expert sponsors
or high-performing neighbouring schools — unless it
can demonstrate that it has a plan to improve rapidly.
We will continue to allow all good schools to expand,
whether they are maintained schools, academies, free
schools or grammar schools.
We will continue to protect school funding
Over the last five years, we have protected the schools budget
and committed £18 billion for new school buildings, so
that children can learn in the best environment possible.
Under a future Conservative Government, the amount of
money following your child into school will be protected.
As the number of pupils increases, so will the amount of
money in our schools. On current pupil number forecasts,
there will be a real-terms increase in the schools budget in
the next Parliament. We will continue to provide the pupil
premium, protected at current rates, so that schools receive
additional money for those from the poorest backgrounds.
We will support families by providing free meals to all
infants. And we will make schools funding fairer. We have
already increased funding for the 69 least well-funded local
authorities in the country, and will make this the baseline for
their funding in the next Parliament. We will not allow state
schools to make a profit.
We will back your child's teachers
We have already given teachers greater disciplinary powers.
In the next Parliament, we will expect every teacher to be
trained not just in how to tackle serious behaviour issues,
but also in how to deal with the low level disruption that
stops children from learning properly. This generation of
teachers is already the best-qualified ever. In future, we will
recruit and keep the best teachers by reducing the time they
spend on paperwork, introducing bursaries for the most
in-demand subjects, paying good teachers more, further
reducing the burden of Ofsted inspections and continuing
to encourage the growth of ‘Teach First. We will increase
the number of teachers able to teach Mandarin in schools
in England, so we can compete in the global race. We want
teachers to be regarded in the same way as other highly
skilled professionals, so we are supporting the creation
of an independent College of ‘Teaching to promote the
highest standards of teaching and school leadership.
We will lead the world in maths and science
We have increased the time schools will spend on maths,
and ensured that children learn to code as soon as they
start school. Maths is now the most popular A-level subject.
We aim to make Britain the best place in the world to study
maths, science and engineering, measured by improved
performance in the PISA league tables. To help achieve
this, we will train an extra 17,500 maths and physics
34
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Yel alole) cm ele le(2{-1mo) ge)e-rec-re minal
£5 billion given to tackle
Labour's school places crisis
teachers over the next five years. We will make sure that all
students are pushed to achieve their potential and create
more opportunities to stretch the most able.
We will protect children
Every child deserves a warm, loving home, and to feel safe
online and at school. We have made improving support
for children and young people with special educational
needs and disabilities a priority. We have created 2,200
more special schools places through our free schools
programme, introduced a coordinated assessment process
to determine a child or young person’s needs, and funded
degree-level specialist training for teachers and support
staff. And to make sure it’s working, Ofsted now formally
inspects local areas for their effectiveness in fulfilling their
new duties. We have made progress in reforming our
adoption system, but there is more to do. We will introduce
regional adoption agencies, working across local authority
boundaries to match children with the best parents for
them. We will continue to raise the quality of children’s
social work, by expanding training programmes, such as
Frontline, and creating new opportunities to develop the
next generation of leaders in the field. We will continue to
tackle all forms of bullying in our schools. And we will stop
children's exposure to harmful sexualised content online, by
requiring age verification for access to all sites containing
pornographic material and age-rating for all music videos.
We will improve skills training
We have given employers much more control over
apprenticeship courses, so they teach skills relevant to
the workplace. We will continue to replace lower-level,
classroom-based Further Education courses with high-
quality apprenticeships that combine training with
experience of work and a wage. We will ensure there is a
Child poverty is down - with
300,000 fewer children living in
poverty
University Technical College within reach of every city. We
will abolish employers' National Insurance contributions
on earnings up to the upper earnings limit for apprentices
under the age of 25. And we will roll out many more
Degree Apprenticeships, allowing young people to combine
a world-class degree with a world-class apprenticeship.
We will improve Further Education
We will continue to improve Further Education through
our network of National Colleges, which will provide
specialist higher-level vocational training in sectors critical
to economic growth. We will publish more earnings and
destination data for Further Education courses, and require
more accreditation of courses by employers.
We will ensure that if you want to go to university,
you can
This year, for the first time, over half a million people
have been admitted to our universities, including a record
proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
From September, we will go even further, abolishing the
cap on higher education student numbers and removing
an arbitrary ceiling on ambition. Our reforms to university
funding mean you do not have to pay anything towards
tuition while studying, and only start paying back if you earn
over £21,000 per year. We will ensure the continuing success
and stability of these reforms, so that the interests of both
students and taxpayers are fairly represented. We will also
introduce a national postgraduate loan system for taught
masters and PhD courses. We will ensure that universities
deliver the best possible value for money to students: we
will introduce a framework to recognise universities offering
the highest teaching quality; encourage universities to
offer more two-year courses; and require more data to be
openly available to potential students so that they can make
decisions informed by the career paths of past graduates.
We will ensure that our universities remain
world-leading
We will maintain our universities’ reputation for world-class
research and academic excellence. Through the Nurse
Review of research councils, we will seek to ensure that the
UK continues to support world-leading science, and invests
public money in the best possible way. And we will encourage
the development of online education as a tool for students,
whether studying independently or in our universities.
THE BEST SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Protecting and improving our
National Health Service
Our commitment to you:
Our National Health Service must be there for you throughout your life. We will:
= continue to increase spending on the NHS, supported by a strong economy, so the NHS
stays free for you to use
m spend at least an additional £8 billion by 2020 over and above inflation to fund and
support the NHS’s own action plan for the next five years
m ensure you can see a GP and receive the hospital care you need, 7 days a week by 2020, with
a guarantee that everyone over 75 will get a same-day appointment if they need one
us integrate health and social care, through our Better Care Fund
= lead the world in fighting cancer and finding a cure for dementia
The NHS 1s vitally important to all of us. Founded on
the principle that no one should ever have to worry about
their ability to pay for their healthcare, it is a profound
expression of our values as a nation.
Patients, doctors and nurses are the experts on how
to improve people’s health. So we have given greater
power and accountability to the frontline than any other
government. We cleared out bureaucracy, generating
savings which we have invested in care for patients.
Instead of chasing managerial targets, we have focused on
outcomes and performance. And we have given patients
more power by providing them with more information.
Under Labour, micro-management from Whitehall
clogged-up the system. A cover-up culture developed,
where doctors and nurses were scared to speak out about
the appalling standards of care at hospitals in places such
as Stafford and Morecambe Bay. By the time Labour left
office, our cancer survival rates lagged far behind those of
other countries, and more than 18,000 patients had been
waiting for over a year to start their treatment.
We are building an NHS that is
more efficient, more effective
and more accountable
We are putting things right. We protected the NHS budget.
Our doctors and nurses are now doing over a million
more operations each year than in 2010. Our Cancer
Drugs Fund has given more than 60,000 people access to
life-saving drugs. We have doubled funding for dementia
research. Hospital infections have halved. An independent
think tank, the Commonwealth Fund, has found that
under the Conservatives the NHS has become the best
healthcare system of any major country. And patients are
reporting the highest levels of satisfaction for years. The
NHS is performing well in the face of increasing demand,
with fewer patients waiting longer than the 18, 26 and
52 week targets than in May 2010. We have slashed the
number of people who wait over a year for the treatment
they need, from over 18,000 to under 500.
Despite this progress, our NHS faces major challenges.
An ageing population will place more pressure on health
and social care, and life-saving but expensive new drugs
will push up costs. And for years it’s been too hard to
access the NHS out of hours, even though sudden illness
and events which you and your family cannot plan for do
not respect normal working hours. We will rise to these
challenges. By building a strong economy, we will be able
to increase spending in real terms every year. With a future
Conservative Government, you will have a truly 7-day
NHS, at the frontier of science, offermg you new drugs and
treatments, safeguarded for years to come.
THE BEST SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Our plan of action:
We will deliver a strong NHS through a strong
economy
We are set to increase health spending by more than £7
bilion above and beyond inflation in the five years since
2010. And we will continue spend more on the NHS, in
real terms, every year. The NHS is more efficient now
than it has ever been. We will implement the NHS’s own
plan to improve health care even further — the Five Year
Forward View. Because of our long-term economic plan,
we are able to commit to increasing NHS spending in
England in real terms by a minimum of £8 billion over
the next five years. Combined with the efficiencies that the
NHS Forward View sets out, this will provide the funding
necessary to implement this plan in full.
We are prioritising resources
to frontline services - with 9,500
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We will make the NHS more convenient
for you
We want England to be the first nation in the world to
provide a truly 7 day NHS. Already millions more people
can see a GP 7 days a week, from 8am-8pm, but by 2020 we
want this for everyone. We will now go further, with hospitals
properly staffed, so that the quality of care is the same
every day of the week. We will restore your right to access a
specific, named GP — something that Labour abolished. We
will ensure that your family doctor appomtments and repeat
prescriptions are routinely available online, wherever you
live. And we will guarantee same-day GP appointments for
all over 75s who need them.
We will offer you the safest and most
compassionate care in the world
We will ensure that English hospitals and GP surgeries
are the safest in the world, places where you are treated
with dignity and respect. We will continue to eliminate
mixed-sex wards and hospital infections. We will ensure
WAV(om ate \ Vom ale ast islem alse Labs
budget above inflation every year
that the NHS 1s accountable when mistakes are made, and
implement the recommendations of the independent review
into the Stafford Hospital scandal. We will ensure that the
independent Care Quality Commussion rates all hospitals,
care homes and GP surgeries. We introduced expert Chief
Inspectors to promote excellence and root out poor care, and
we will continue to back them. We are deeply proud of our
NHS staff, who are the best in the world. Over the last five
years, we have hired thousands more doctors and nurses. We
will continue to ensure that we have enough doctors, nurses
and other staff to meet patients’ needs, and consider how
best to recognise and reward high performance.
We will help you make informed choices about
your healthcare
We will improve standards in all areas of care. In 2013
we introduced the friends and family test so you could
provide feedback on the care and treatment you received;
we aim to increase the proportion of people who rate
their experience as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’. We will boost
transparency even further, ensuring you can access full
information about the safety record of your hospital and
other NHS or independent providers, and give patients
greater choice over where and how they receive care. We
will give you full access to your own electronic health
records, while retaming your right to opt-out of your
records being shared electronically.
We will support you and your family to stay
healthy
We are helpmg people to stay healthy by ending the open
display of tobacco in shops, introducing plam~—packaged
cigarettes and funding local authority public health budgets.
We will take action to reduce childhood obesity and continue
to promote clear food information. We will support people
struggling with addictions and undertake a review into how
People deserve
patient-centred healthcare
not more bureaucracy
38
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
best to support those suffermg from long-term yet treatable
conditions, such as drug or alcohol addiction, or obesity,
back in to work. We will be the first country to implement a
national, evidence-based diabetes prevention programme.
And we will invest more in primary care, to help prevent
health problems before they start.
We will ensure you receive the best healthcare
We will speed up your access to new medicines by
implementing the findings of our Innovative Medicines
and Medical Technology Review. We will increase the
use of cost-effective new medicines and technologies, and
encourage large-scale trials of innovative technologies and
health services. Antibiotic resistance is a major health risk
so we will continue to lead the global fight against it, taking
forward the recommendations of the independent review
launched by the Prime Minister, David Cameron. And
we will support our long-term economic plan by fostermg
research, innovation and jobs in the life science industry.
We will help if you or your loved ones are
affected by cancer
Cancer survival rates are improving, and are now the best
they have ever been. We will continue to invest in our life-
saving Cancer Drugs Fund. We will work with the NHS,
charities and patient groups to deliver the new strategy
recommended by NHS England’s cancer taskforce.
This will improve survival rates and save thousands of
lives through enhanced prevention, earlier detection
and diagnosis, and better treatment and care. We will
continue to support research to improve the diagnosis and
treatment of rare diseases and cancers, including through
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Drugs Fund
decoding 100,000 whole genomes. ‘This will help scientists
and doctors understand diseases better, and design more
effective, personalised treatments.
We will continue to take your mental health as
seriously as your physical health
We have legislated to ensure that mental and physical
health conditions are given equal priority. We will now
go further, ensuring that there are therapists in every
part of the country providing treatment for those who
need it. We are increasing funding for mental health
care. We will enforce the new access and waiting time
standards for people experiencing mental ill-health,
including children and young people. Building on our
success In training thousands of nurses and midwives
to become health visitors, we will ensure that women
have access to mental health support during and after
pregnancy, while strengthening the health visiting
programme for new mothers.
We will ensure that people can grow old in
comfort and dignity
We have led the world on fighting dementia, and will
deliver our strategy — the Prime Minister’s Challenge on
Dementia 2020 — making sure that everyone diagnosed
with the condition gets a meaningful care plan to support
them and their family. We will increase support for full-
time unpaid carers. We will guarantee that you will not
have to sell your home to fund your residential social care.
‘Too many people spend their last days in hospital when
they would prefer to die closer to home; we will support
commissioners to combine better health and social care
services for the terminally ill so that more people are able to
die in a place of their choice. We will continue to integrate
the health and social care systems, joining-up services
between homes, clinics and hospitals, including through
piloting new approaches like the pooling of around
£6 billion of health and social care funding in Greater
Manchester and the £5.3 billion Better Care Fund.
THE BEST SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Enabling you to enjoy our heritage,
creativity and sports
Our commitment to you:
Wherever you live in the country, we want you to be able to enjoy the best our culture and
sports have to offer. We will:
m keep our major national museums and galleries free to enter
= support school sport, build on our Olympic and Paralympic legacy, and deliver the Rugby
and Cricket World Cups and the World Athletics Championships
m freeze the BBC licence fee, to save you money
m support our creative industries and defend a free media
One of the highlights of the past five years was the
London Olympic and Paralympic Games. ‘Those weeks
in 2012 demonstrated the best of our country. When the
pressure is on, we deliver; when the stakes are high, we
come together; when it comes to taking on the world, we
can win.
We may not be the biggest country, but our museums
are second to none. In music, art, fashion, theatre,
design, film, television and the performing arts, we
have an edge. Conservatives understand these things
do not just enhance our national prestige and boost
our economy; they help tie our country together,
strengthening the bonds between all of us.
That’s why, despite all the economic chaos we inherited,
we have put over £8 billion of public and Lottery
funding into the arts, heritage, museums and galleries
during the last five years. We have also boosted school
sports and increased the share of National Lottery
funding going to good causes.
Culture and sport help
bring us closer together as
a nation, strengthening the
bonds between all of us
Our plan of action:
We will support our world-leading museums,
galleries and heritage
We will keep our major national museums and galleries
free to enter and enable our cultural institutions to benefit
from greater financial autonomy to use their budgets as
they see fit. Over the last five years, we have made sure that
arts funding benefits the whole of the UK. We will support
a Great Exhibition in the North; back plans for a new
theatre, ‘The Factory, Manchester; and help the Manchester
Museum, in partnership with the British Museum, to
establish a new India Gallery. We are also supporting plans
to develop a modern world class concert hall for London.
We will ensure the protection and enjoyment of one
our most ancient and precious heritage sites by building
a tunnel where the A303 passes closest to Stonehenge.
We significantly increased National Lottery funding for
heritage and have created a brand new heritage charity —
English Heritage — to support more than 400 buildings and
monuments. And we will continue to support essential roof
repairs for our cathedrals and churches, along with other
places of worship.
We will continue to support local libraries
We will help public libraries to support local
communities by providing free wi-fi. And we will assist
them in embracing the digital age by working with them
THE BEST SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
to ensure remote access to e-books, without charge
and with appropriate compensation for authors that
enhances the Public Lending Right scheme.
We will support our media
A free media is the bedrock of an open society. We
will deliver a comprehensive review of the BBC Royal
Charter, ensuring it delivers value for money for the
licence fee payer, while maintaining a world class service
and supporting our creative industries. That is why
we froze the BBC licence fee and will keep it frozen,
pending Charter renewal. And we will continue to ‘top-
slice’ the licence fee for digital infrastructure to support
superfast broadband across the country.
We will defend press freedom
We will continue to defend hard-won liberties and the
operation of a free press. But alongside the media’s
rights comes a clear responsibility, which is why we set
up the public, judge-led Leveson Inquiry in response
to the phone-hacking scandal, created a new watchdog
by Royal Charter and legislated to toughen media libel
laws. Because the work of the free press is so important
we will offer explicit protection for the role of journalists
via the British Bill of Rights and we will ban the police
from accessing journalists’ phone records to identify
whistle-blowers and other sources without prior judicial
approval. Local newspapers are an important source of
information for local communities and a vital part of a
healthy democracy. ‘To support them as they adapt to
new technology and changing circumstances, we will
consult on the introduction of a business rates relief for
local newspapers in England.
We will support our creative industries
The creative industries have become our fastest-growing
economic sector, contributing nearly £77 billion to the
UK economy ~ driven in part by the tax incentives for
films, theatre, video games, animation and orchestras
we introduced. Our support for the film industry
has resulted in great British films and encouraged
Hollywood’s finest to flock to the UK. We will continue
these reliefs, with a tax credit for children’s television
next year, and expand them when possible. We will
protect intellectual property by continuing to require
internet service providers to block sites that carry large
amounts of illegal content, including their proxies. And
we will build on progress made under our voluntary
anti-piracy projects to warn internet users when they are
breaching copyright. We will work to ensure that search
engines do not link to the worst-offending sites.
We will continue to support tourism
in our country
Our tourism industry already supports three million jobs
and is one of the nation’s leading employers and export
earners. We will set challenging targets for Visit Britain
and Visit England to ensure more visitors travel outside
the capital. We will simplify and speed up visa issuance
for tourists. And because tourism is an industry that
depends more than most on young people, we will step
up efforts to recruit more apprentices into the business.
We will build on our Olympic and
Paralympic legacy
We want our sportsmen and women to win even more
medals in Rio 2016 than they did in London 2012. So
we will continue to support elite sports funding as part
of our Olympic and Paralympic legacy. We will deliver
the Rugby World Cup in 2015, the World Athletics
Championship in 2017, [PC World Championships in
2017 and the Cricket World Cup in 2019, maximising
the opportunities for tourism and jobs. We will support
new sports in the UK, in particular through greater links
with the US National Football League, the National
Basketball Association and Major League Baseball, with
the ultimate ambition of new franchises being based here.
We will boost sport in your community
We have already boosted funding for sport in primary
schools and over 18,000 schools have registered to
take part in our School Games. We will go further,
supporting primary school sport with £150 million a
year, paid directly to head-teachers, until 2020. This will
make sure that all primary schoolchildren benefit from
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42
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
a minimum of two hours high-class sport and PE each
week. We will improve the quality of Community Sports
facilities, working with local authorities, the Football
Association and the Premier League to fund investment
in artificial football pitches in more than 30 cities across
England. We will continue to invest in participation
and physical activity, recognising sport’s vital benefits
to health and to NHS England’s campaign to prevent
diabetes. We will lift the number of women on national
sports governing bodies to at least 25 per cent by 2017,
and seek to increase participation in sport by women
and girls.
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THE BEST SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY 43
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Helping you build the Big Society
Our commitment to you:
Building the Big Society is about involving the people, neighbourhoods, villages, towns and cities
of Britain in the great task of improving our country - and giving young people the power and
opportunity to play a real part in their community. We will:
= guarantee your child a place on National Citizen Service, so they can learn new skills and
meet young people from different walks of life
m promote equal treatment and equal opportunity for all in a society proud of its tolerance
and diversity
m give those who work for a big company and the public sector a new workplace entitlement
to Volunteering Leave for three days a year, on full pay.
The Big Society is a vision of a more engaged nation, one
in which we take more responsibility for ourselves and our
neighbours; communities working together, not depending
on remote and impersonal bureaucracies. Of course, there
are many tasks which require the resources and grip of
government. But there are also many areas of national
life in which we need more people to step forward, take
responsibility and play their part. This is about a national
culture change, saying to everyone in Britain: ask what you
can do for your community and your country.
Volunteering is at a 10-year
alicdaPmUUidamom aaliiice)ameslelacm-le (elias
giving their time last year than
TaWwACnte
In the past five years, there has been real progress.
Volunteering is now at a ten-year high, with over three
million more adults giving their time last year than in
the year to March 2010. Charitable donations are on the
up, with one million more people giving to good causes
than at the end of the last Parliament. ‘There are now
parents’ groups and charities running their own free
schools. There are social enterprises helping people into
jobs through the Work Programme. We have launched
the world’s first social investment bank, introduced more
social impact bonds than the rest of the world combined
and highlighted the great work done in communities
with the Big Society Awards and the Prime Minister’s
Points of Light award.
A generation of teenagers has undertaken National
Citizen Service (NCS), developing their skills, broadening
their horizons and growing in confidence; over the next
five years, we will expand NCS ~ so it becomes a rite of
passage for young people in our country. We will give
more people the power and support to run a school, start
their own social enterprise, and take over their own local
parks, landmarks and pubs. We will encourage the 1,400
communities engaged in neighbourhood planning to
complete the process and assist others to draw up their
own plans. And we will take new steps to encourage
volunteering, enabling more people to join the unsung
heroes who are the backbone of communities across
Britain.
Our plan of action:
We will expand National Citizen Service
Over 130,000 young people have graduated from NCS
and we have now guaranteed a place on NCS for every
16 and 17-year-old who wants one. In addition to this,
we will increase the number of cadet units in schools, so
that more students have the chance to learn skills such as
leadership and self-reliance.
THE BEST SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
We will innovate in how we deliver public
services
We have pioneered ways to deliver high-quality public
services, including through getting the voluntary sector
more involved. For example, our Work Programme has
helped harness the talent and energy of charities to help
people turn their lives around and find their way back
into work. We will examine ways to build on this type of
innovative approach in the future. We have also pioneered
the use of social impact bonds and payment-by-results,
and we will look to scale these up in the future, focusing on
youth unemployment, mental health and homelessness.
We will help you volunteer and support action
to help the vulnerable
We will support the Prince of Wales’ Step Up To Serve
initiative, encouraging young people to serve in their
community. And we will make volunteering for three
days a year a workplace entitlement for people working in
large companies and the public sector. People could, for
example, volunteer for a local charity or serve as a school
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governor. We have always believed that churches, faith
groups and other voluntary groups play an important and
longstanding role in this country’s social fabric, running
foodbanks, helping the homeless, and tackling debt and
addictions, such as alcoholism and gambling. We have
already introduced tougher regulation of gambling, with
enhanced player protections and planning controls to
prevent the further proliferation of high street betting
shops; we've capped payday lending and backed financial
inclusion; and will continue to support action that helps
vulnerable people get the assistance they need.
We will champion equal rights and correct
past wrongs
Our historic introduction of gay marriage has helped
drive forward equality and strengthened the institution
of marriage. But there 1s still more to do, and we
will continue to champion equality for Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and ‘Transgender people. We will build on the
posthumous pardon of Enigma codebreaker Alan ‘Turing,
who committed suicide following his conviction for gross
indecency, with a broader measure to lift the blight of
outdated convictions of this nature. ‘Thousands of British
men still suffer from similar historic charges, even though
they would be completely innocent of any crime today.
Many others are dead and cannot correct this injustice
themselves through the legal process we have introduced
while in government. So we will introduce a new law that
will pardon those people, and right these wrongs.
46
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Making government work better for you
Our commitment to you:
The government is the servant of the British people. Every pound spent must be scrutinised, and
government run as efficiently and effectively as possible. We will:
m save you money by cutting government waste
um put more of the essential services you use online, to make them more convenient
m= continue to make government more transparent, so you can hold us to account for how
your money is being spent.
Government 1s the servant of the British people, not
their master. That simple fact was forgotten when
Labour was in power. Quangos grew in number,
wasteful projects proliferated and the bureaucracy
swelled — symptoms of a Government that believed it
always knew best.
Hardworking taxpayers
deserve a government
that is more efficient and
accountable
Conservatives have brought in a new approach. We
are determined to measure success not by how much
money is spent, but how much it improves people’s
lives. Whitehall is now leaner and smaller than at any
time since the Second World War. We have halved
the running costs of the Department for Education.
We have abolished or merged over 300 quangos. We
have moved paperwork online. We have shone a bright
light on government spending — requiring all central
government spending over £25,000 to be published
online. We have also ensured that people receive a
transparent breakdown of how their taxes are spent.
In the next five years, we will ensure this efficiency
revolution continues. We will also continue to reform our
political system: make votes of more equal value through
long overdue boundary reforms, reducing the number of
MPs and ensuring the Electoral Commission does more
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to tackle voting fraud. These measures will help to restore
public confidence in British politics.
Our plan of action:
We will cut government waste
We have reduced the cost of government, by selling
empty buildings, managing big projects better, shrinking
the Civil Service, reforming pensions, moving more
services online, and improving contracting. We plan a
further £10 billion annual savings by 2017-18 and £15-
20 billion in 2019-20.
To eliminate the deficit, we
must continue to cut out
wasteful spending
THE BEST SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
We will deliver better public services and more
open government
We have supported the growth of public service mutuals —
organisations that are owned by their staff and deliver public
services. We want more of them, so we will guarantee a
‘right to mutualise’ within the public sector. ‘This will free up
the entrepreneurial spirit of public servants and yield better
value for money for taxpayers. ‘Transparency has also been
at the heart of our approach to government. Over the last
five years, we have been open about government spending,
provided access to taxpayer-funded research, pursued
open data and helped establish the Open Government
Partnership. We will continue to be the most transparent
government in the world. We addressed public concern
about the influence of money on politics, with a law that
strengthened rules governing non-party campaigning
and established a register of consultant lobbyists. In the
next Parliament, we will legislate to ensure trade unions
use a transparent opt-in process for subscriptions to
political parties. We will continue to seek agreement on a
comprehensive package of party funding reform.
We will make government more efficient
We value our outstanding public servants. Over the last five
years, we have made efficiencies in government. We have
ruled out the introduction of regional pay in the public
sector, which we do not support and will not introduce.
Britain's impartial, professional and highly capable Civil
Service is admired around the world and one of our nation's
strengths. We will push ahead with reform of the Civil
Service to make it more dynamic and streamlined. We
will make recruitment to the Civil Service more open and
actively look for exceptional talent, especially in areas where
capabilities are in short supply. We will continue to tackle
all the bureaucracy of Whitehall that clogs the arteries of
government. We will end taxpayer-funded six-figure payoffs
for the best paid public sector workers. We will continue to
sell unneeded government property and co-locate services
wherever possible. We have already created 20 high-quality
digital services, which include apprenticeships applications
and tax self-assessments. We will save you time, hassle and
money by moving more services online, while actively
tackling digital exclusion. We will ensure digital assistance is
always available for those who are not online, while rolling
out cross-government technology platforms to cut costs and
improve productivity — such as GOV.UK.
We will reform Parliament
We have improved the operation of Parliament,
strengthening its ability to hold the Government to account,
with reforms such as the election of Select Committee chairs
and the creation of the Backbench Business Committee,
which enables backbenchers, for the first time, to determine
a significant proportion of the House of Commons’
business. We have also passed the Fixed ‘Term Parliament
Act, an unprecedented transfer of Executive power. In
the next Parliament, we will address the unfairness of the
current Parliamentary boundaries, reduce the number
of MPs to 600 to cut the cost of politics and make votes
of more equal value. We will implement the boundary
reforms that Parliament has already approved and make
them apply automatically once the Boundary Commission
reports in 2018. ‘This will deal with the fact that the current
electoral layout over-represents parts of the country where
populations have been falling and under-represents parts
where populations have been rising.
We will ensure that the House of Lords fulfils
its valuable role as a chamber of legislative
scrutiny and revision
While we still see a strong case for introducing an elected
element into our second chamber, this is not a priority in
the next Parliament. We have already allowed for expulsion
of members for poor conduct and will ensure the House of
Lords continues to work well by addressing issues such as the
size of the chamber and the retirement of peers.
We will protect our electoral system, to
safeguard our democracy
Building on our introduction of individual voter
registration, we will continue to make our arrangements
fair and effective by ensuring the Electoral Commission
puts greater priority on tackling fraud and considers
insisting on proof of ID to vote. We will complete the
electoral register, by working to include more of the five
million Britons who live abroad. We will introduce votes for
life, scrapping the rule that bars British citizens who have
lived abroad for more than 15 years from voting. We will
respect the will of the British people, as expressed in the
2011 referendum, and keep First Past the Post for elections
to the House of Commons. And we will introduce English
votes for English laws, answering the longstanding West
Lothian Question in our democracy.
THE BEST SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Helping you to buy a home of your own
Our commitment to you:
The chance to own your own home should be available to everyone who works hard. We will:
= help to keep mortgage rates lower by continuing to work through our long-term
economic plan
m= build more homes that people can afford, including 200,000 new Starter Homes exclusively
for first-time buyers under 40
= extend the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme to 2020 to help more people onto and up the
housing ladder, and introduce a new Help to Buy ISA to support people saving for a deposit
m= give more people the chance to own their home by extending the Right to Buy to tenants of
Housing Associations and create a Brownfield Fund to unlock homes on brownfield land
m= ensure local people have more control over planning and protect the Green Belt
Conservatives believe passionately in home ownership.
We understand how good it feels when you have worked
long hours, saved money for years, and finally take
possession of the keys to your first home. For years,
however, people have been finding it harder and harder
to get on the housing ladder. Under Labour, house-
building fell to its lowest peacetime level since the
1920s. Developers were building too few homes and
the aftermath of the banking crisis saw young people
struggling to raise a deposit.
House building at its highest
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These past five years have been about reversing this
trend. We have unblocked the planning system, to help
builders start building again. We have introduced Help
to Buy, making it much easier for people to secure a
mortgage. And we have reinvigorated the Right to Buy
which Labour had cut back, extending home ownership
to a whole new generation of social tenants. As a result,
over 200,000 people have been helped either on or up
the housing ladder. Most of those helped have been
young first-time buyers spread right across our country.
Everyone who works hard
should be able to own a
home of their own
As the party of home ownership, we want to go further
and faster — and this manifesto sets out our plan. At its
heart, a clear objective to build affordable homes, including
200,000 Starter Homes which will be sold at a 20 per cent
discount, and will be built exclusively for first tume buyers
under the age of 40. At the same time, we will extend our
Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme, introduce a new Help to
Buy ISA, extend the Right to Buy to Housing Association
tenants and make sure that, when it comes to planning
decisions, local people are in charge.
And for all those already in their home, we will make
sure we continue working through our economic plan,
so mortgage rates stay lower for longer and people
can keep hold of their homes and plan for the future
— safe in the knowledge they have a government that is
competently looking after the public finances so they
can look after their own.
SECURING YOUR HOME AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
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We will continue to work
through our plan, so
mortgage rates stay lower
for longer
Our plan of action:
We will double the number of first-time
buyers, and help more people own their
own home
We are setting an ambition to double the number of
first-time buyers compared to the last five years — helping
one million more people to own their own home. We will
extend Help to Buy to cover another 120,000 homes — in
total helping over 200,000 people and we will continue
the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee until the start of
2017, and the Help to Buy equity loan until at least 2020.
From this autumn, we will introduce a new Help to Buy
ISA to support people who are working hard to save up
for a deposit for their first home. A ten per cent deposit
on the average first home costs £15,000, so if you put
in up to £12,000, government will put in up to £3,000
more. A 25 per cent top-up 1s equivalent to saving a
deposit from your pre-tax income — making it effectively a
tax cut for first-time buyers.
Our new Help to Buy ISA
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working hard to save for a
deposit
We will build 200,000 Starter Homes and
more affordable housing
We will build 200,000 quality Starter Homes over the
course of the next Parliament, reserved for first-time
buyers under 40 and sold at 20 per cent below the market
price. We have delivered over 217,000 new affordable
homes since 2010. We will now go further, delivering
275,000 additional affordable homes by 2020. And we
will offer 10,000 new homes to rent at below market rates,
to help people save for a deposit.
We will extend the Right to Buy to tenants in
Housing Associations
We will extend the Right to Buy to tenants in Housing
Associations to enable more people to buy a home of
their own. It is unfair that they should miss out on a
right enjoyed by tenants in local authority homes. We
will fund the replacement of properties sold under the
extended Right to Buy by requiring local authorities to
manage their housing assets more efficiently, with the
most expensive properties sold off and replaced as they
fall vacant. We will also create a Brownfield Fund to
unlock homes on brownfield land for additional housing.
We will give you the Right to Build
We aim at least to double the number of custom-built
and self-built homes by 2020, and we will take forward
a new Right to Build, requiring councils to allocate land
to local people to build or commission their own home,
as you can do in most of Europe.
We will protect the Green Belt
We have safeguarded national Green Belt protection
and increased protection of important green spaces.
We have abolished the Labour Government’s top-down
Regional Strategies which sought to delete the Green
Belt in and around 30 towns and cities and introduced
a new Local Green Space planning designation which
allows councils and neighbourhood plans to give added
protection to valuable local green spaces.
We will support locally-led garden cities and
towns and prioritise brownfield development,
making sure new homes are always matched by
the necessary infrastructure to support them
We will support locally-led garden cities and towns in
places where communities want them, such as Ebbsfleet
and Bicester. When new homes are granted planning
permission, we will make sure local communities
know up-front that necessary infrastructure such as
schools and roads will be provided. We will ensure that
brownfield land 1s used as much as possible for new
development. We will require local authorities to have a
register of what 1s available, and ensure that 90 per cent
52
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
of suitable brownfield sites have planning permission for
housing by 2020. ‘To meet the capital’s housing needs,
we will create a new London Land Commission, with a
mandate to identify and release all surplus brownfield
land owned by the public sector. We will fund Housing
Zones to transform brownfield sites into new housing,
which will create 95,000 new homes.
Average council tax bills in
England have fallen, in real
terms, by 11 per cent
We will help keep your council taxes low
Under this Government, average council tax bills in
England have fallen, in real terms, by 11 per cent.
Whereas Labour wants to propose a new tax on family
homes, we will help local authorities keep council tax
low for hardworking taxpayers, and ensure residents
can continue to veto high rises via a local referendum.
And in London, where there is a Conservative Mayor,
bills have fallen even further. We will continue to work
with councillors to deliver high quality, value for money
services. We will encourage voluntary integration of
services and administration between and within councils —
for example, with the Troubled Families Programme and
the Better Care Fund — to promote savings and improve
local services. We want local councils to help manage
public land and buildings, and will give them at least a 10
per cent stake in public sector land sales in their area.
We will help you build a strong local economy
We want local authorities to help create strong local
economies. Building on the local retention of business
rates introduced in 2012, we will promote localism by
allowing councils to keep a higher proportion of the
business rates revenue that is generated in their area.
This will provide a strong financial incentive for councils
to promote economic growth. We will review how we
can further reduce ring-fencing and remove Whitehall
burdens to give councils more flexibility to support
local services. We will support Business Improvement
Districts and other forms of business-led collaboration
on high streets — giving more say to local traders on
issues such as minor planning applications, cleaning and
parking. We will continue to support local shops and
residents in tackling aggressive parking enforcement and
excessive parking charges, and take steps to tackle rogue
and unfair practices by private parking operators. Our
Coastal Communities Fund will help our seaside areas
thrive, helping to boost skills and create jobs.
SECURING YOUR HOME AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Protecting and enhancing our natural environment
Our commitment to you:
We set ourselves the goal of being the first generation to leave the natural environment of
England in a better state than that in which we found it. This is a big ambition to which we
remain committed. We will:
m putin place a new ‘Blue Belt’ to protect precious marine habitats
m invest in cleaner air and water for you and your family
us keep our forests in trust for the nation
For Conservatives, Britain’s ‘green and pleasant land’
is not some relic from a bygone era, to be mourned
and missed: it’s the living, breathing backdrop to our
national life. Our moors and meadows, wildlife and
nature, air and water are a crucial part of our national
identity and make our country what it is. So we care
about them deeply, want to protect them for everyone
and pass them onto future generations.
Labour never understood this. Our rural communities
fell further behind urban areas; biodiversity suffered,
with important species and habitats declining under
their watch; and they failed to protect the Green Belt.
Over the last five years, we have committed billions of
pounds to reduce emissions from transport and clean up
our rivers and seas. We have done more to protect our
seas, safeguarded our Green Belt and planted 11 million
trees. And we set out a comprehensive, long-term vision
to protect our natural heritage in this country’s first
White Paper on the Natural Environment for 20 years.
Over the next five years, we will put in place stronger
protections for our natural landscapes, establish a new
Blue Belt to safeguard precious marine habitats, launch
a programme of pocket parks in towns and cities and
continue to lead in tackling the illegal wildlife trade.
Our plan is to conserve and enhance our natural
environment so that this remains the most beautiful
country in the world.
Our plan of action:
We will protect your countryside, Green Belt
and urban environment
We will spend £3 billion from the Common Agricultural
Policy to enhance England’s countryside over the next five
years, enabling us, among other things, to clean up our
rivers and lakes, protect our stonewalls and hedges, and help
our bees to thrive. We will ensure that our public forests
and woodland are kept in trust for the nation and plant
another 11 million trees. We will make it easier to access our
beautiful landscapes, by providing free, comprehensive maps
of all open-access green space. Building on our introduction
of a five pence charge on single-use plastic bags, we will
review the case for higher Fixed Penalty Notices for littermg
and allow councils to tackle small-scale fly-tipping through
Fixed Penalties rather than costly prosecutions. We will
launch an ambitious programme of pocket parks — small
areas of inviting public space where people can enjoy relief
from the hustle and bustle of city streets. We will protect the
Green Belt, and maintain national protections for Areas of
Outstanding Natural Beauty, National Parks, Sites of Special
Scientific Interest and other environmental designations.
We will help you enjoy cleaner air and water
We will continue to do even more to tackle air pollution
and clean up our rivers and waterways, including
supporting the Thames ‘Tideway Tunnel. We have
spent over £3 billion on improving flood defences, and
capped the cost of flood insurance. We will now go
further, building 1,400 new flood defence schemes, to
protect 300,000 homes.
54
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
We will build new infrastructure in an
environmentally-sensitive way
We will build new roads and railways in a way that limits,
as far as possible, their impact on the environment. ‘This
includes investing £300 million in cutting light pollution
from new roads, doing more tunnelling, building better
noise barriers and helping to restore lost habitat. We
will also replace locally any biodiversity lost in the
construction of High Speed 2. We set up the Natural
Capital Committee to put hard economic numbers on the
value of our environment, and we will extend its life to at
least the end of the next Parliament. We will work with it
to develop a 25 Year Plan to restore the UK’s biodiversity,
and to ensure that both public and private investment in
the environment is directed where we need it most.
We want to protect our
environment for future
generations
We will create a ‘Blue Belt’ to protect precious
marine habitats
Earlier this year, we announced the creation of a new
Marine Protected Area around the Pitcairn Islands — the
largest protected expanse of sea in the world. We will
now go even further, creating a Blue Belt around the
UK’s 14 Overseas ‘Territories, subject to local support and
environmental need. We will designate a further protected
area at Ascension Island, subject to the views of the local
community. And, off our own coasts, we will complete
the network of Marine Conservation Zones that we have
already started, to create a UK Blue Belt of protected sites.
We will protect animal welfare
The quality of the food on your plate, and the economic
security of our farmers, depend on us upholding the
highest standards of animal welfare. We will push for
high animal welfare standards to be incorporated into
international trade agreements and into reform of the
Common Agricultural Policy. We will ban wild animals
in circuses and press for all KU member states to ensure
that animals are only sent to slaughterhouses that
mect high welfare standards. We will encourage other
countries to follow the EU’s lead in banning animal
testing for cosmetics and work to accelerate the global
development and take-up of alternatives to animal
testing where appropriate. We want people to integrate
fully into British society, but that does not mean they
should have to give up the things they hold dear in their
religion. So while we will always make sure the Food
Standards Agency properly regulates the slaughter
of livestock and poultry, we will protect methods of
religious slaughter, such as shechita and halal.
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flood defences - over £3 billion
We will tackle international wildlife trade
As hosts of the London Conference on the IHegal Wildlife
‘Trade, we helped secure the adoption of the London
Declaration on Illegal Wildlife Trade and will continue
to lead the world in stopping the poaching that kills
thousands of rhinos, elephants and tigers each year. We
will oppose any resumption of commercial whaling, and
seek further measures at the EU and internationally to
end shark-finning. We will promote effective worldwide
measures for tuna conservation, press for a total ban on
ivory sales, and support the Indian Government in its
efforts to protect the Asian elephant. We will press for
full ‘endangered species’ status for polar bears and a ban
on the international trade in polar bear skins, as well as
for greater attention to be paid to the impact of climate
change on wildlife and habitats in Polar Regions in the
Arctic Council and other international fora.
SECURING YOUR HOME AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Guaranteeing you clean, affordable and
secure energy supplies
Our commitment to you:
Affordable, reliable energy is critical to our economy, to our national security, and to family
budgets. We will:
= keep your bills as low as possible and promote competition in the energy market
m ensure your homes and businesses have energy supplies they can rely on
= help you insulate your home
= halt the spread of subsidised onshore wind farms
m meet our climate change commitments, cutting carbon emissions as cheaply as possible,
to save you money
Without secure energy supplies, we leave British families
and business at the mercy of fluctuating global oil and
gas prices; we increase our dependence on foreign
sources of energy; and we become less safe and less
prosperous as a result.
National energy policy demands a willingness to take
decisions today for the good of tomorrow. But Labour
took the opposite approach. Power margins — the safety
cushion we need to prevent blackouts — have fallen to
record lows because of their historic failure to invest
in new capacity. Domestic sources of oil and gas were
unexploited. And Labour failed to deliver the next
generation of energy projects that will help us keep the
lights on, drive bills down and reduce carbon emissions.
All this hurt consumers. The number of major energy
suppliers halved and energy bills soared, with the
average gas bill more than doubling.
We have taken a different approach. Where Labour
was chronically short-termist, we have secured decent,
affordable energy supplies not just for the coming years,
but for the coming decades.
Our long-term plan has unlocked £59 billion of
investment in electricity. All parts of the UK will soon
be helping to deliver secure, affordable and low-carbon
energy, from the Hinkley Point nuclear power station, to
Without secure energy
supplies our country
becomes less safe and less
prosperous
offshore wind turbine manufacturing at the new Green
Port in Hull, the next generation of pipelines West of
Shetland and the Swansea tidal lagoon. Our tax cuts
have encouraged record levels of investment in existing
North Sea gas, and the birth of a new industry, shale
gas, which could create many thousands of jobs.
And we have delivered a better deal for consumers too.
We have demanded that energy companies simplify
their tariffs; encouraged more independent suppliers —
which now account for ten per cent of the household
market; and made it much easier for people to switch
energy providers.
But the job is only half done. We need a Conservative
Government to see through this long-term plan
and secure clean but affordable energy supplies for
generations to come. ‘This means a significant expansion
in new nuclear and gas; backing good-value green
energy; and pushing for more new investment in UK
energy sources. Healthy competition, not short-termist
56
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
political intervention, is the best way to secure a good
deal for consumers. So we will keep on relentlessly
pushing for more competition to keep bills low.
This is a long-term plan to keep the lights on; keep our
homes warm; and keep families from endless worry
about their energy bills.
Under Labour, the average gas
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Our plan of action:
We will promote competition to keep your
bills as low as possible
We have helped increase the number of independent
energy suppliers from seven to 21, made it easier for
customers to switch to better deals, slashed the number
of tariffs to just 4 per supplier, and cut switching times
in half. We will go even further, implementing the
recommendations of the Competition and Markets
Authority investigation that we triggered. We will ensure
that every home and business in the country has a Smart
Meter by 2020, delivered as cost-effectively as possible,
so consumers have instant, accurate bills and can switch
to an alternative provider within one day. And we will
support low-cost measures on energy efficiency, with the
goal of insulating a million more homes over the next five
years, supporting our commitment to tackle fuel poverty.
We will secure your energy supplies
We will continue to support the safe development of
shale gas, and ensure that local communities share the
We want a better deal - and
low bills - for hardworking
families
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better energy tariffs
proceeds through generous community benefit packages.
We will create a Sovereign Wealth Fund for the North
of England, so that the shale gas resources of the North
are used to invest in the future of the North. We will
continue to support development of North Sea oil and
gas. We will provide start-up funding for promising new
renewable technologies and research, but will only give
significant support to those that clearly represent value
for money.
We will halt the spread of onshore windfarms
Onshore wind now makes a meaningful contribution
to our energy mix and has been part of the necessary
increase in renewable capacity. Onshore windfarms
often fail to win public support, however, and are unable
by themselves to provide the firm capacity that a stable
energy system requires. As a result, we will end any new
public subsidy for them and change the law so that local
people have the final say on windfarm applications.
We will protect our planet for our children
We have been the greenest government ever, setting
up the world’s first Green Investment Bank, signing a
deal to build the first new nuclear plant in a generation,
trebling renewable energy generation to 19 per cent,
bringing energy efficiency measures to over one million
homes, and committing £1 billion for carbon capture
and storage. We are the largest offshore wind market
in the world. We will push for a strong global climate
deal later this year — one that keeps the goal of limiting
global warming to two-degrees firmly in reach. At
home, we will continue to support the UK Climate
Change Act. We will cut emissions as cost-effectively as
possible, and will not support additional distorting and
expensive power sector targets.
SECURING YOUR HOME AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Fighting crime and standing up for victims
Our commitment to you:
Your local area should be a safe place to grow up, work, raise a family and retire. We will
continue to cut crime and make your community safer. We will:
a finish the job of police reform, so you can have more confidence that your local policing
team is working effectively
m toughen sentencing and reform the prison system, so dangerous criminals are kept off
your streets
m= support victims, so that the most vulnerable in our society get the support they deserve.
= scrap the Human Rights Act and curtail the role of the European Court of Human Rights, so
that foreign criminals can be more easily deported from Britain.
Crime is down by more than 20 per cent since 2010,
according to the independent Crime Survey, and is at its
lowest point since records began. Lower crime means
fewer robberies, less violence on our streets, fewer lives
ruined, and more people able to feel confident about the
future.
Labour didn’t trust our brilliant policemen and women,
probation staff and prison officers to do their job, but
tried to micromanage every police force from Whitehall,
doing serious damage to officer morale, police discretion
and forces’ performance. And Labour failed to provide
sufficient prison places: tens of thousands of prisoners
were released early, putting the public at risk.
We have made progress in turning around the situation
we inherited, with comprehensive reforms to policing,
rehabilitation and the rights of victims. We have already
increased the proportion of officers working on the
frontline, and cut 4.5 million hours of police paperwork.
We have given Chief Constables a clear mandate to cut
crime, reformed stop and search, established the National
Crime Agency, strengthened the police inspectorate,
made the police more accountable through Police and
Crime Commissioners, increased transparency through
crime maps, and set up the College of Policing to drive
up professional standards.
We have made sure that 45,000 offenders will now receive
supervision and rehabilitation on release from prison,
with providers paid according to the results they achieve
in reducing reoffending. We reformed drug treatment so
that abstinence and full recovery is the goal, instead of the
routine maintenance of people’s addictions with substitute
drugs. And with new laws to crack down on domestic
violence, measures to prevent Female Genital Mutilation
Crime has been cut by more
idarclamcmalada
(FGM), the first ever Modern Slavery Act, action to tackle
human trafficking and substantial progress in tackling
online child abuse, we have consistently stood up for the
most vulnerable in our society.
We will carry on making every community safer, even
when resources are tight. We will continue reducing
paperwork, increasing sentence lengths for the most
serious offences, and making sure that prisons are places
of rehabilitation.
We need to complete our revolution in the way we manage
offenders in the community, using the latest technology to
keep criminals on the straight and narrow. And we must
also become smarter when it comes to crime prevention,
dealing with the drivers of crime such as drugs and
alcohol. So we will focus not only on punishment, but also
58
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
on rehabilitating offenders and intervening early to prevent
troubled young people being drawn into crime.
Our plan of action:
We will finish the job of police reform, backing
officers to fight crime unimpeded
We will ensure proper provision of health and community-
based places of safety for people suffering mental health
crises — saving police time and stopping vulnerable people
being detained in police custody. ‘Io speed up justice, we
will extend the use of police-led prosecutions. We will allow
police forces to retain a greater percentage of the value
of assets they seize from criminals. We will improve our
response to cyber-crime with reforms to police traming and
an expansion in the number of volunteer “Cyber Specials’.
We will enable fire and police services to work more
closely together and develop the role of our elected and
accountable Police and Crime Commissioners.
We will transform the relationship between
the police and the public
We have taken action to boost public confidence and trust
in the police and now want to go even further. We will
improve the diversity of police recruitment — especially
of black and ethnic minority officers — by supporting
the development of new direct entry and fast-track
schemes such as Police Now, which offers top graduates
a new route into policmg. We will overhaul the police
complaints system. We will use the Police Innovation Fund
to accelerate the adoption of new technologies, including
mobile devices, that will transform the service the public
receives. And we will legislate to mandate changes in police
practices if stop and search does not become more targeted
and stop to arrest ratios do not improve.
We will introduce more effective crime
prevention measures to break the cycle of
offending
We are developing a modern crime prevention strategy
to address the key drivers of crime. We will publish
standards, performance data and a ranking system for
the security of smartphones and tablets, as well as online
financial and retail services. We will overhaul the system
of police cautions, and ensure that offenders always
have conditions, such as victim redress, attached to their
punishment. We will create a blanket ban on all new
psychoactive substances, protecting young people from
exposure to so-called ‘legal highs’. And we will make
sobriety orders available to all courts in England and
Wales, enforced through new alcohol monitoring tags.
We will reform our prison system
Despite making savings in the prison budget, there are
around 3,000 more adult male prison places today than in
2010. We will make further savings by closing old, inefficient
prisons, building larger, modern and fit-for-purpose ones
and expanding payment-by-results. And we will introduce
widespread random testing of drug use in jails, new body
scanners, greater use of mobile phone blocking technology
and a new strategy to tackle corruption in prisons.
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We will protect victims and support the
vulnerable
We have already introduced a new Victims’ Code and
taken steps to protect vulnerable witnesses and victims.
Now we will strengthen victims’ rights further, with
a new Victims’ Law that will enshrine key rights for
victims, including the right to make a personal statement
and have it read in court before sentencing — and before
the Parole Board decides on a prisoner's release. We
will give all vulnerable victims and witnesses greater
opportunity to give evidence outside court, and roll out
nationally pre-trial cross examination for child victims.
We will prioritise tackling violence against
women and girls
We have made protecting women and girls from
violence and supporting victims and survivors of
sexual violence a key priority. We will now work with
local authorities, the NHS and Police and Crime
Commissioners to ensure a secure future for specialist
FGM and forced marriage units, refuges and rape
crisis centres. We will ensure that all publicly-funded
SECURING YOUR HOME AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
advocates have specialist victims' training before
becoming involved in serious sexual offences cases. We
have set up an independant statutory inquiry into child
sexual abuse, and will make sure it can challange
institutions and individuals without fear or favour, and
get to the truth. And we will continue the urgent work
of overhauling how our police, social services and other
agencies work together to protect vulnerable children,
especially from the kind of organised grooming and
sexual exploitation that has come to light in Rotherham,
and other towns and cities across the UK.
We will toughen sentencing and use new
technology to protect the public
We will continue to reform the way we rehabilitate
prisoners. We will deploy new technology to monitor
offenders in the community and to bring persistent
offenders to justice more quickly. A new semi-custodial
sentence will be introduced for prolific criminals, allowing
for a short, sharp spell in custody to change behaviour.
To tackle those cases where judges get it wrong, we will
extend the scope of the Unduly Lenient Scheme, so a
wider range of sentences can be challenged. We will
review the legislation governing hate crimes, including the
case for extending the scope of the law to cover crimes
committed against people on the basis of disability, sexual
orientation or transgender identity. We will improve
the treatment of women offenders, exploring how new
technology may enable more women with young children
to serve their sentence in the community.
We will reform human rights law and our
legal system
We have stopped prisoners from having the vote, and
have deported suspected terrorists such as Abu Qatada,
despite all the problems created by Labour’s human rights
laws. The next Conservative Government will scrap the
Human Rights Act, and introduce a British Bill of Rights.
This will break the formal link between British courts and
the European Court of Human Rights, and make our
own Supreme Court the ultimate arbiter of human rights
matters in the UK. We will continue the £375 million
modernisation of our courts system, reducing delay and
frustration for the public. And we will continue to review
our legal aid systems, so they can continue to provide
access to justice in an efficient way.
We will scrap the Human
Rights Act and introduce a
British Bill of Rights
60
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Preventing terrorism, countering extremism
Our commitment to you:
Keeping you and your family safe is our overriding priority. The threat of extremism and
terrorism remains serious, but with our tough, intelligent and comprehensive approach, we will
confront and ultimately defeat it. We will:
um strengthen the ability of the police and intelligence agencies to disrupt terrorist plots,
so the authorities have all the tools they need to prevent attacks
= deal with online radicalisation and propaganda, so we can reduce the risk of young
people being drawn into extremism and terrorism
a tackle all forms of extremism, including non-violent extremism, so our values and our way
of life are properly promoted and defended
The first duty of government 1s to keep you safe. We
will always do whatever is necessary to protect the
British people. We have protected and increased the
budgets for the security and intelligence agencies and
counter-terrorism policing. But the scale of the threat
to our country from a number of terrorist groups
remains serious, and the rise of ISIL in Syria and Iraq
has created new havens for terrorists from which attacks
against Britain can be planned, financed and directed.
We will always do whatever
is necessary to protect the
British people
However, the nature of the threat we face 1s making
it more difficult for the security services to identify
terrorist plots — especially thanks to new technology. We
must always ensure our outstanding intelligence and
security agencies have the powers they need to keep
us safe. At the same time, we continue to reject any
suggestions of sweeping, authoritarian measures that
would threaten our hard-won freedoms. In the last year
alone, we have given the authorities greater powers to
disrupt and control the movements of people who want
to travel abroad to fight, including strengthening powers
to confiscate the passports of those seeking to travel to
commit terrorism.
The next Conservative Government will continue to
take a tough, intelligent and comprehensive approach
to preventing terrorism and confronting extremism.
We will update our counter-terrorism laws wherever
necessary to make sure they properly reflect the threats
we face.
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Dealing with these threats is not just about new powers.
It is about how we combat extremism in all its forms.
We need to tackle it at root, before it takes the form
of violence and terror. At the heart of our approach
lies an uncompromising defence of British values,
and a very simple message: in Britain, you do not just
enjoy the freedom to live how you choose; you have a
responsibility to respect others too.
Our plan of action:
We will strengthen counter-terrorism powers
We have strengthened counter-terrorism laws, including
making it easier to stop British nationals travelling
SECURING YOUR HOME AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
abroad to fight, and control the return of those who
do. We will keep up to date the ability of the police and
security services to access communications data — the
‘who, where, when and how’ of a communication,
but not its content. Our new communications data
legislation will strengthen our ability to disrupt terrorist
plots, criminal networks and organised child grooming
gangs, even as technology develops. We will maintain
the ability of the authorities to intercept the content
of suspects’ communications, while continuing to
strengthen oversight of the use of these powers.
We will confront all forms of extremism,
including non-violent extremism
We have already reformed the Prevent strategy so that
it focuses on non-violent as well as violent extremism.
We will now go even further. We will outlaw groups
that foment hate with the introduction of new Banning
Orders for extremist organisations. ‘These could be
applied to dangerous organisations that fall short
of the existing thresholds for proscription under
Over 75,000 pieces of unlawful
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terrorism legislation. ‘To restrict the harmful activities
of extremist individuals, we will create new Extremism
Disruption Orders. These new powers might, for
instance, prevent those who are seeking to radicalise
young British people online from using the internet
or communicating via social media. We will develop a
strategy to tackle the infiltration of extremists into our
schools and public services. We will strengthen Ofcom’s
role so that tough measures can be taken against
channels that broadcast extremist content.
We will enable employers to check whether an
individual is an extremist and bar them from working
with children. And we will take further measures
to ensure colleges and universities do not give a
platform to extremist speakers.
SECURING YOUR HOME AND YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Dignity in your retirement
Our commitment to you:
If you have worked hard during your life, saved, paid your taxes and done the right thing, you
deserve dignity and security when you retire. We want Britain to be the best country in which to
grow old. We will:
u take the family home out of Inheritance Tax for al! but the richest by raising the effective
threshold for married couples and civil partners to £1 million
m continue to increase the State Pension through our triple lock, so it rises by at least 2.5 per
cent, inflation or earnings, whichever is highest
m reward saving by introducing a new single-tier pension
= give you the freedom to invest and spend your pension however you like - and let you
pass it on to your loved ones tax-free
= protect pensioner benefits including the free bus pass, TV licences and Winter Fuel Payment
m ensure Britain has a strong economy, so we can continue to protect the NHS and make sure
no-one is forced to sell their home to pay for care.
Our pensioners have made this country what it is, and we
believe that, in return, younger generations owe it to them
to ensure they have dignity and security in their old age.
In office, Labour neglected the elderly. They raided
pensions with a £150 billion stealth tax. One year they
increased pensions by a paltry 75 pence. And they
did nothing to give people control over their savings
and pensions, or to stop them from having to sell their
homes to pay for care. In place of these meagre pension
increases, we have introduced the triple lock: the Basic
State Pension will now always rise in line with whichever
is higher — earnings, inflation or 2.5 per cent. Since
2010, we have seen the Basic Pension has risen in value
by £950. We have abolished the Default Retirement
Age, so you can keep working as long as you like. We
We are building a Britain
where everyone who has
worked hard and done the
right thing can enjoy security
in retirement
are replacing the Pension Credit — basically a means
test — with a new Single-Tier Pension: whatever people
save, they will keep. And we have introduced a cap
on residential social care costs: no one will have to sell
their home to pay for care. On top of all this, we have
scrapped compulsory annuities, giving people complete
control over their pension pots; kept all pensioner
benefits; and protected NHS spending.
In the next five years, as our country recovers and
our elderly population grows, we will continue to put
pensioners at the heart of our long-term economic plan.
Our plan of action:
We will look after you as you grow older
We will cap charges for residential social care
from April 2016 and also allow deferred payment
agreements, so no one has to sell their home. For the
first time, individual liabilities will be limited, giving
everyone the peace of mind that they will receive
the care they need, and that they will be protected
from unlimited costs if they develop very serious care
DIGNITY IN YOUR RETIREMENT
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We will help you support your loved-ones
We will continue to increase the
We have guaranteed that ISAs can now be passed on to a
Basic State Pension through our
‘triple lock’ guarantee
spouse tax-free, so that from this April they are no longer
subject to Income ‘Tax and Capital Gains ‘Tax. We have
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abolished the 55 per cent tax on pension pots, so that
when the deceased is 75 or over any beneficiary only has
needs — such as dementia. We will protect the NHS
budget and we will prioritise funding for dementia
to pay their marginal Income ‘Tax rate — normally 20 per
cent — when they draw down the pension. And we have
research. enabled anyone who dies before the age of 75 to pass on
their pension pot completely tax-free, so that beneficiaries
will pay no tax on pensions they inherit or on the income
they draw down. And we will take the family home out
of tax for all but the richest by increasing the effective
We will guarantee your financial security as
you grow older
We will keep the triple lock pension system. From April Inheritance ‘Tax threshold for married couples and civil
2016 we are bringing in a Single ‘Tier Pension; this will
effectively abolish means-testing the pensions of people
who have contributed all their lives. We will maintain
all the current pensioner benefits including Winter Fuel
partners to £1 million, with a new transferable main
residence allowance of £175,000 per person. ‘This
will be paid for by reducing the tax relief on pension
contributions for people earning more than £150,000.
Payments, free bus passes, free prescriptions and TV
licences for the next Parliament, while implementing
It's your money, you worked
hard for it - and you should
be able to pass it onto your
loved-ones
the "temperature test" for Winter Fuel Payment, so that
expats in hot countries no longer receive it. And we will
allow pensioners to access their pension savings and
decide whether or not to take out an annuity, so they can
make their own decisions about their money.
DIGNITY IN YOUR RETIREMENT 67
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Stronger together: a Union for the 21st century
Our commitment to you:
Wherever you live in the great nations of our United Kingdom, we are on your side. We will:
= give English MPs a veto over matters only affecting England, including on Income Tax
= honour in full our commitments to Scotland to devolve extensive new powers
m implement the agreed settlement for Wales, handing over more responsibility to the
Welsh Assembly
= continue to build a Northern Ireland where politics works, the economy grows and
society is strong.
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — ours
is the greatest union of nations the world has ever seen.
‘Together we have done so much, and we can do much
more. The Conservative Party is the party of the Union
—and we will always do our utmost to keep our family
of nations together.
It was right to create the Scottish Parliament and Welsh
Assembly, but the job was not finished. Without the
ability to raise money, the devolved Parliaments were not
accountable to taxpayers. Without devolution to local
councils and communities, power felt as distant as ever.
And one fundamental unfairness remains today: Scottish
MPs are able to cast the decisive vote on matters that
only affected England and Wales, while English and
Welsh MPs cannot vote on matters that only affect
Scotland. This leaves a space for resentment to fester —
and put our Union in jeopardy.
We have tackled the problems we inherited. First, we
held the referendum on Scottish independence. It was
the right thing to do, and the question of Scotland’s
place in the United Kingdom is now settled. We have
made the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly
responsible for funding more of what they spend. We
have agreed with Northern Ireland’s parties a deal to
help ensure that politics works, the economy grows and
society 1s more cohesive and united. And we have set out
clear plans for English votes for English laws.
All this reflects a core Conservative belief: power to the
people. Around Britain you can see that principle in practice.
In town halls, councillors now have more of a say over public
spending. In communities, local people have the right to
vote in referendums on council tax rises. Neighbourhoods
are deciding what is built in their area and what happens to
assets such as parks and public buildings.
We believe in giving power
to hardworking taxpayers,
letting you decide on the
issues that affect you and
your family
Our commitment to the Union means we want to
strengthen it. We will let local people have more say on
local planning and let them vote on local issues. We will
not let anyone impose artificial regions on England —
our traditional towns, boroughs, cities and counties are
here to stay. We will continue devolution settlements
for Scotland and Wales, and implement the Stormont
House Agreement in Northern Ireland. And we will give
English MPs a veto over English-only matters, including
on Income ‘Tax — answering the West Lothian Question.
In the last five years, we have proven that we are the
party of the Union. We will go further in the next
Parliament, pushing power out beyond Westminster,
Cardiff Bay, Holyrood and Stormont, so we keep our
United Kingdom strong and secure for the long term.
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Our plan of action:
We will build an enduring settlement for the
United Kingdom
We will work to ensure a stable constitution that is fair to
the people of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern
Ireland. We will strengthen and improve devolution
for each part of our United Kingdom in a way that
accepts that there is no one-size-fits-all solution: we will
implement the Smith Commission and St David’s Day
Agreement or equivalent changes in the rest of the UK,
including English votes for English laws.
We will give English MPs a veto over matters
only affecting England
We will maintain the Westminster Parliament as the UK
and Eneland’s law-making body. But we want Parliament
to work in a way that ensures decisions affecting England,
or England and Wales, can only be taken with the consent
of the majority of MPs representing constituencies in
England, or in England and Wales. We will end the manifest
unfairness whereby Scotland is able to decide its own laws in
devolved areas, only for Scottish MPs also to be able to have
the potentially decisive say on similar matters that affect only
England and Wales. We will maintain the integrity of the
UK Parliament by ensuring that MPs from all parts of the
UK continue to deliberate and vote together, including to set
overall spending levels. But we will:
m change parliamentary procedures so that the detail of
legislation affecting only England or England and Wales
will be considered by a Committee drawn in proportion
to party strength in England or England and Wales.
m adda new stage to how English legislation is
passed; no bill or part of a bill relating only to
England would be able to pass to its ‘Third Reading
and become law without being approved through a
legislative consent motion by a Grand Committee
made up of all English MPs, or all English and
Welsh MPs.
m@ extend the principle of English consent to financial
matters such as how spending 1s distributed within
England and to taxation — including an English rate
of Income ‘Tax — when the equivalent decisions have
been devolved to Scotland.
We will honour in full our commitments to
Scotland
A new Scotland Bill will be in our first Queen’s Speech and
will be mtroduced in the first session of a new Parliament.
We will implement the recommendations of the Smith
Commission so that more than 50 per cent of the Scottish
Parliament’s budget will be funded from revenues raised in
Scotland and it will have significant new welfare powers to
complement existing devolved powers in health and social
care. We will provide the Scottish Parliament with one of
the most extensive packages of tax and spending powers
of any devolved legislature in the world. We will retain the
Barnett Formula as the basis for determining the grant
to cover that part of the Scottish Parhament’s budget not
funded by tax revenues raised in Scotland. We will agree
new rules with the Scottish Government for how the block
grant will be adjusted, to take account of the new devolved
tax and welfare powers. And we will ensure that where
responsibility for taxation has been devolved, tax changes
only affect public spending in that part of the country.
We will implement Wales’ devolution
settlement
We will clarify the division of powers between Wales
and the UK Government. We will:
m devolve to the Welsh Assembly control over its own
affairs — including the Assembly name, size and
electoral system, Assembly elections and voting age.
m@ implement other recommendations of the second
Silk Report where there is all-party support as set
out in the St David’s Day Agreement; this will
include devolving to the Welsh Assembly important
economic powers over ports and energy consents.
m introduce anew Wales Bill if these changes require
legislation.
™ continue to reserve policing and justice as matters for
the UK Parliament.
m@ introduce a ‘funding floor’ to protect Welsh relative
funding and provide certainty for the Welsh Government
to plan for the future, once it has called a referendum on
Income ‘Tax powers in the next Parliament.
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
m make the Welsh Government responsible for raising
more of the money it spends so the Welsh people
can hold their politicians to account.
We will continue to build a Northern Ireland
where politics works, the economy grows and
society is strong
We will maintain Northern Ireland’s position within
the United Kingdom on the basis of the consent of its
people. Our strong support for the political institutions
established over the past two decades as a result of the
various Agreements will continue. We will:
m put the safety and security of the people of Northern
Ireland as our highest priority. We will develop and
implement our strategy to combat terrorism, giving
the strongest possible support to the brave men and
women of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
work to implement fully and faithfully the historic
Stormont House Agreement to enable devolution to
function more effectively; to deal with the legacy of
the past; and to make progress on divisive issues such
as flags and parading.
continue to work closely with the Northern Ireland
Executive to implement commitments in the 2013
economic pact to rebalance the economy and to
build a more united and stronger society.
complete the devolution of Corporation Tax powers
to the Assembly, consistent with the Executive
fulfilling its commitments on finance, welfare reform
and efficiencies in the Stormont House Agreement.
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Real change in our relationship
with the European Union
Our commitment to you:
For too long, your voice has been ignored on Europe. We will:
m give you a say over whether we should stay in or leave the EU, with an in-out referendum
by the end of 2017
m commit to keeping the pound and staying out of the Eurozone
= reform the workings of the EU, which is too big, too bossy and too bureaucratic
= reclaim power from Brussels on your behalf and safeguard British interests in the Single
Market
m back businesses to create jobs in Britain by completing ambitious trade deals and
reducing red tape.
The EU needs to change. And it is time for the British
people — not politicians — to have their say. Only the
Conservative Party will deliver real change and real choice
on Europe, with an in-out referendum by the end of 2017.
Labour failed to give you a choice on the EU. They
handed over major new powers to Brussels without
your consent, and gave away £7 billion of the British
rebate. We have taken action in Europe to promote your
economic security. We cut the EU budget for the first
time ever, saving British taxpayers £8.15 billion. We took
Britain out of Eurozone bailouts, including for Greece —
the first ever return of powers from Brussels. Our Prime
Minister vetoed a new EU treaty that would have damaged
Britain’s interests. And we have pursued a bold, positive,
pro-business agenda, exempting smallest businesses from
red tape, promoting free trade, and pushing to extend the
Single Market to new sectors, like digital.
We believe in letting the
people decide: so we will hold
an in-out referendum on our
membership of the EU before
the end of 2017
But there is much more to do. The EU is too bureaucratic
and too undemocratic. It interferes too much in our
daily lives, and the scale of migration triggered by new
members joining in recent years has had a real impact on
local communities. We are clear about what we want from
Europe. We say: yes to the Single Market. Yes to turbo-
charging free trade. Yes to working together where we are
stronger together than alone. Yes to a family of nation
states, all part of a European Union — but whose interests,
crucially, are guaranteed whether inside the Euro or out.
No to ‘ever closer union.’ No to a constant flow of power
to Brussels. No to unnecessary interference. And no, of
course, to the Euro, to participation in Eurozone bail-outs
or notions like a European Army.
It will be a fundamental principle of a future Conservative
Government that membership of the European Union
depends on the consent of the British people — and in
recent years that consent has worn wafer-thin. ‘That’s why,
after the election, we will negotiate a new settlement for
Britain in Europe, and then ask the British people whether
they want to stay in the EU on this reformed basis or leave.
David Cameron has committed that he will only lead a
government that offers an in-out referendum. We will hold
that in-out referendum before the end of 2017 and respect
the outcome.
So the choice at this election is clear: Labour and the
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Liberal Democrats won’t give you a say over the EU.
UKIP can’t give you a say. Only the Conservative
Party will deliver real change in Europe ~ and only the
Conservatives can and will deliver an in-out referendum.
Our plan of action:
We will let you decide whether to stay in
or leave the EU
We will legislate in the first session of the next Parliament
for an in-out referendum to be held on Britain’s
membership of the EU before the end of 2017. We will
negotiate a new settlement for Britain in the EU. And then
we will ask the British people whether they want to stay
in on this basis, or leave. We will honour the result of the
referendum, whatever the outcome.
We will protect Britain's economy
We will protect our economy from any further integration
of the Eurozone. The integration of the Eurozone has
raised acute questions for non-Eurozone countries like the
United Kingdom. We benefit from the Single Market and
do not want to stand in the way of the Eurozone resolving
its difficulties. Indeed, given the trade between Britain and
the Eurozone countries we want to see these economies
returning to growth. But we will not let the integration of
the Eurozone jeopardise the integrity of the Smgle Market
or in any way disadvantage the UK.
We will reclaim powers from Brussels
We want to see powers flowing away from Brussels, not
to it. We have already taken action to return around 100
powers, but we want to go further. We want national
parliaments to be able to work together to block unwanted
European legislation. And we want an end to our
commitment to an ‘ever closer union,’ as enshrined in
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Furthermore, we will continue to ensure that defence
policy remains firmly under British national control,
maintamimg NATO and the transatlantic relationship as
the cornerstones of our defence and security policy.
We will scrap the Human Rights Act
We will scrap Labour's Human Rights Act and introduce
a British Bill of Rights which will restore common sense
to the application of human rights in the UK. The Bill
will remain faithful to the basic principles of human
rights, which we signed up to in the original European
Convention on Human Rights. It will protect basic rights,
like the right to a fair trial, and the right to life, which are
an essential part of a modern democratic society. But it will
reverse the mission creep that has meant human rights law
being used for more and more purposes, and often with
little regard for the rights of wider society. Among other
things the Bill will stop terrorists and other serious foreign
criminals who pose a threat to our society from using
spurious human rights arguments to prevent deportation.
We will take action in Europe to make
you better off
We want an EU that helps Britain move ahead, not
one that holds us back. We have already succeeded
in exempting our smallest businesses from new EU
regulations, and kicked-off negotiations for a massive
EU trade deal with the USA, which could be worth
billions of pounds to the UK economy. We will build
on this. We want to preserve the integrity of the Single
Market, by insisting on protections for those countries
that have kept their own currencies. We want to expand
the Single Market, breaking down the remaining barriers
to trade and ensuring that new sectors are opened
up to British firms. We want to ensure that new rules
target unscrupulous behaviour in the financial services
industry, while safeguarding Britain as a global centre of
excellence in finance. So we will resist EU attempts to
restrict legitimate fmancial services activities. We will press
for lower EU spending, further reform of the Common
Agricultural Policy and Structural Funds, and for EU
money to be focused on promoting jobs and growth.
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
A Britain standing tall in the world
Our commitment to you:
Everything we do around the world will be driven by a determination to protect your security
and help you prosper. We will:
m ensure Britain is a major player on the world stage, using diplomacy to protect your
interests, uphold British values and tackle threats to your security and prosperity
m help generate new trade, investment and job opportunities, to benefit you and your family
= maintain our world class Armed Forces so they continue to guarantee your security
gm uphold our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on international
development.
Economic security and national security are two sides
of the same coin. Without one, you cannot have the
other. Our prosperity depends upon Britain remaining
an active, outward-looking nation, one that is engaged
with the world, not looking in on itself. We will maintain
Britain’s strong global role and our capacity to project
British power and values around the world.
We want a strong, secure
and stable country
Labour’s Great Recession weakened Britain on the
world stage. ‘They left a £38 billion black hole in the
defence budget, went 12 years without conducting
a Strategic Defence Review, and, at times, failed to
provide our Armed Forces with the equipment they
needed in Afghanistan. ‘They shut down over 30
British diplomatic missions, failed to plan properly for
Iraq’s reconstruction, ignored trade and investment
opportunities overseas, and neglected vital relationships.
We have strengthened Britain’s influence in the world. The
National Security Council that we established ensures proper,
strategic decision-making at the top of government. We have
boosted exports to emerging markets, opened new diplomatic
posts in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and led the world
in promoting women’s rights and tackling sexual violence in
conflict. We have balanced the defence budget and set out a
clear strategy to defend our nation for the long term.
We and our allies face major challenges: Islamist
extremism, an aggressive Russia, economic uncertainty
in the Eurozone, nuclear proliferation and infectious
diseases. A Conservative Government will tackle these
challenges. We will use our membership of NATO, the
EU, the Commonwealth, our UN Security Council seat,
our Special Relationship with the USA, our intelligence
agencies, vital institutions like the BBC World Service
and British Council, and the strong personal links
between our diaspora communities and other countries,
to achieve the best for Britain.
Only with a strong economy
can we maintain our world-
class Armed Forces and
protect our national security
We will back this up with UK military power and
international aid. Our long-term economic plan will
ensure we have the economic strength to maintain
our world-class Armed Forces, to uphold our national
security and project power globally. Aid helps prevent
failed states from becoming havens for terrorists.
It builds long-term markets for our businesses, by
promoting global prosperity, and reduces migration
pressures. So we will maintain our commitment to
tackling conflict, poverty and disease around the world.
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A stronger voice for our nation on the world stage
Our plan of action:
We will keep you secure
We will tackle global terrorism and the poisonous
ideology of Islamist extremism while taking a patient,
long-term approach to preventing conflict and state
failure. We will work with our partners to address threats
to UK security, including the spread of nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons, pandemic diseases, the illegal
drugs trade, piracy and organised crime. We will:
m work for peace, stability and an inclusive settlement
in Syria and Iraq; and pursue a comprehensive
political and military strategy to defeat ISIL
m uphold the sovereignty, integrity and capacity of
Ukraine, and continue to reject Russia’s illegal
annexation of Crimea
m@ stand shoulder to shoulder with our NATO allies,
reassuring all its members — especially those closest
to Russia — of their security, and continue to support
the Euro-Atlantic path for Western Balkan nations
m@ ensure that the significant achievements of our
Armed Forces in Afghanistan are maintained; and
support the Government of Afghanistan in ensuring
that the country remains stable and never again
becomes a haven for international terrorists
—™ support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, robustly defending the right of Israel to
protect its security, while continuing to condemn
illegal settlement building, which undermines the
prospects for peace
m protect global security by helping to lead
international efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining
a nuclear weapon; and work to ensure that North
Korea ends its development of nuclear weapons.
We will help make you better off
Over the last five years, we have used foreign policy to
boost our prosperity. UK exports to China have more
than doubled since 2009. We will do more, using the new
embassies and diplomatic posts we have opened to connect
Britain to the fastest-growing economies in the world. We
will push for freer global trade, concluding major trade deals
with the US, India and Japan and reinvigorating the World
‘Trade Organisation. As part of our drive to attract more
investment into the UK and increase British exports, we will:
m build on our strong relationship with India, push
for an ambitious EU-India trade deal and support
India’s bid for permanent representation on the UN
Security Council
m strengthen our economic links with China, doubling
support for British firms selling goods there and
championing an EU-China trade deal.
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We will stand up for British values
Our long-term security and prosperity depend on a
stable international system that upholds our values.
Over the last five years, we have stood up for what we
believe in: intervening to stop a massacre in Libya,
leading the world in tackling sexual violence in conflict,
and helping women and children who have fled violence
in Syria. We will continue this leadership. We will
stand up for the freedom of people of all religions —
and non-religious people — to practise their beliefs in
peace and safety, for example by supporting persecuted
Christians in the Middle East. We will strengthen the
Commonwealth’s focus on promoting democratic values
and development. We will drive forward the Preventing
Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative. We will support
global processes on arms control. And we will continue
to support universal human rights. We will:
@ uphold our Special Relationship with the USA
and further strengthen our ties with our close
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Commonwealth allies, Australia, Canada and New
Zealand
m uphold the democratic rights of the people of
Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands to remain British,
for as long as that is their wish, and protect our
Overseas ‘Territories
m stand up for the rule of law and human rights in
Zimbabwe
Keeping Britain safe
m™ support a democratic transition in Burma
m™ promote reconciliation and human rights in Sri
Lanka, including through supporting the UN
investigation into war crimes, which the Prime
Minister was instrumental in securing following his
historic visit to Jaffna
H actively support Cypriots to find a peaceful and
lasting settlement to reunite their island.
Our plan of action:
We will protect our nation
We will continue to keep our Armed Forces strong so they
can continue to keep you safe. We will maintain the size
of the regular armed services and not reduce the army
to below 82,000. We will retain the Trident continuous at
sea nuclear deterrent to provide the ultimate guarantee
of our safety and build the new fleet of four Successor
Ballistic Missile Submarines — securing thousands of
highly-skilled engineering jobs in the UK. We will work
closely with our allies to continue to strengthen NATO
— supporting its new multi-national rapid response force.
We will maintain our global presence, strengthening our
defence partnerships in the Gulf and Asia. Later this year,
we will hold a National Security Strategy and Strategic
Defence and Security Review to plan for the future.
We will maintain a balanced defence budget
and give our Armed Forces the equipment
they need
We can only have strong, well-funded Armed Forces by
continuing to build a stronger economy. We have the second
largest defence budget in NATO and the largest in the EU.
We are meeting NATO’s two targets: that each country
should spend two per cent of its gross national income on
defence, and of that spending 20 per cent should go on
major equipment. We have made commitments for the
equipment plan to be funded at one per cent above inflation
for the next Parliament. We plan to invest at least £160
billion in new military equipment over the next decade: as
well as our six new ‘Type 45 destroyers, we are building a
class of seven Astute submarines and buying the Joint Strike
Fighter, Scout armoured vehicles, ‘Type 26 frigates and
new Apache attack helicopters. We will bring both of our
new Aircraft Carriers - HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS
Prince of Wales, the largest vessels the Royal Navy has ever
possessed — into service, so we have one available for use at
all times. We will continue to seek value for money in defence
procurement, recognising the important contribution that
the UK defence industry makes to our prosperity.
We have the biggest defence
budget in the EU - and the
second biggest in NATO
We will maintain strong, modern Armed
Forces
Modern, flexible Armed Forces need strong reserve capacity,
alongside strong regular forces. We have invested significantly
in our reserves, and we will deliver on our commitment
to expand them to 35,000. We will continue to invest in
our cyber defence capabilities. We will also provide more
opportunities for talented people from all communities and
walks of life to serve their country. We will ensure our Armed
Forces overseas are not subject to persistent human rights
claims that undermine their ability to do their job.
We will do all we can to honour
those who give so much
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We will continue to honour the Armed Forces
Covenant
We have honoured our commitment to enshrine the
Armed Forces Covenant in law and done much to
support our servicemen and women. We have delivered
better accommodation for service families, helped
service personnel buy their own home, and ensured that
children of members of the Armed Forces benefit from
the Pupil Premium. We have delivered proper mental
health support and priority access to medical treatments
for veterans. ‘To ensure that those who serve can enjoy
greater economic security, we have boosted allowances
and tax reliefs. We have protected pensions for our
servicemen and women. We have ensured that injured
service personnel have access to the latest prosthetics and
world-class rehabilitation facilities. And we have used
£450 million of LIBOR fines from banks to support the
Armed Forces community. The money has been used
to support a wide range of charities and good causes,
from providing better play facilities for the children of
service families, to helping rehabilitation through sport for
injured veterans. We pressed for the introduction of the
Arctic Star medal — for veterans of the Arctic Convoys
—and the Bomber Command Clasp, to ensure proper
recognition for those who risked their lives to keep us free.
We will build on this proud record, implementing Lord
Ashcroft’s recommendations on the way the nation fulfils
its obligations to veterans. We will work to address hearing
loss among veterans. And we will continue to support
the unsung heroes of the Armed Forces community: the
partners and families of those who serve.
Tackling global challenges to make you safer
and more prosperous
Our plan of action:
We will continue to honour our commitments
Tackling global poverty is both the right thing to do
and in Britain’s interests. We have delivered on our
promises to meet the UN target of spending 0.7 per
cent of national income as aid and to enshrine this in
law. We will continue to meet the 0.7 per cent target,
maintain an independent Department for International
Development and keep aid untied. Our aid budget
meets the OECD aid rules, and we will actively engage
in international discussions to ensure that these rules
fully reflect the importance of peace, stability and
effective institutions for reducing poverty. We will insist
that every government and organisation we fund meets
global transparency standards.
We will save lives
By 2020, we will save 1.4 million children’s lives, by
immunising 76 million children against killer diseases.
We will help at least 11 million children in the poorest
countries gain a decent education, improve nutrition
for at least 50 million people, who would otherwise go
hungry; and help at least 60 million people get access
By 2020, we will save 1.4
million children's lives
to clean water and sanitation, to stop terrible diseases.
We will continue to lead the response to humanitarian
emergencies, and establish a means to respond rapidly
to crises. Our leading role in dealing with the recent
outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is a good example
of how our aid programme helps protect Britain from
serious threats, while also helping countries tackle major
emergencies which put their stability at risk. We will
lead a major new global programme to accelerate the
development of vaccines and drugs to eliminate the
world’s deadliest infectious diseases, while investing to
save lives from malaria and working to end preventable
child and maternal deaths. We will expand payment by
results and ensure all money to governments is clearly
earmarked for specific purposes.
We will tackle the causes of poverty and
promote gender equality
We will push for new global goals to eradicate extreme
poverty by 2030 and promote human development,
78
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
gender equality and good governance. We will work
to prevent climate change and assist the poorest in
adapting to it. As the route out of poverty is about
much more than just aid, we will boost growth and
jobs, making it easier for people to start up businesses
and trade freely with each other. We will continue to
promote the golden thread of democracy, the rule of
law, property rights, a free media and open, accountable
institutions. We will promote girls’ education, encourage
equal access to property rights and work to achieve
access to family planning for everyone who wants it. We
will continue to lead efforts to tackle violence against
women and girls, end FGM and combat early and
forced marriage, both at home and abroad.
We will help you fight poverty
Our International Citizen Service has given thousands
of young Brits the opportunity to volunteer abroad. We
will triple it in size. We will also double our successful
Aid Match scheme, which matches donations to
charity from the aid budget. We will boost partnerships
between UK institutions and their counterparts in the
developing world, and help people in the UK give or
lend money directly to individuals and entrepreneurs
around the world.
KEEPING OUR COUNTRY SECURE
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THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY MANIFESTO 2015
Conclusion
SO THIS IS OUR DETAILED PLAN FOR BRITAIN.
Our plan to entrench the progress of the past five years. Our plan for you and your
family, at every stage of your life.
IT IS UNDERPINNED BY SOME SIMPLE CONSERVATIVE VALUES.
Those who work hard and do the right thing must be rewarded. Everyone should
be able to rise as high as their talents and effort will take them. We measure
our success not just in how we show our strength abroad, but in how we care for
the weakest and most vulnerable at home.
ABOVE ALL, RUNNING THROUGH THIS PLAN
IS A TRUE BELIEF IN BRITAIN.
In the past five years, as so often before in our history, we have once again
defied the expectations of the world to rise up and meet our challenges. The British
character is renewed every day by the millions who work hard, raise their families, care for
those who need help, who do the right thing — and make this country what it 1s.
THIS MANIFESTO IS ABOUT IMPROVING THE LIVES
OF EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THESE PEOPLE.
Together we have come so far. If we stick to our long-term plan, we can secure
a better future for you and your family. So let us keep moving forward; and set our sights
on making our great country greater still.
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